


Unstuck In Time

by MKittyUltra, PollyMajor_AKA_ughvengersassemble



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Well its not really amnesia but it's very like that), Amnesia, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff and Angst, Kid Dean, M/M, Smut, Threesome, Time Travel, Wing Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:36:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 74,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1967475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MKittyUltra/pseuds/MKittyUltra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PollyMajor_AKA_ughvengersassemble/pseuds/PollyMajor_AKA_ughvengersassemble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being in love with a time-travelling angel is easy. Staying together is the difficult part. Through the disappearing acts and the apparent amnesia, love binds Cas and Dean together across times and dimensions. The rest is history. Or the future. Neither of them is really sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Date (Sort Of)

**Author's Note:**

> APOLOGIES: When I started writing this fic last summer, I was using a different formatting method to the pretty one you see in Chapter One. I'll eventually go back to Two-Eight and renovate them, but the priority atm is to FINISH THE STORY. WOO. One day, the whole thing will look pretty and everything will be fine. For now though, I'm sorry the middle section is kind of drab.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This fic is influenced by 'The Time Traveler's Wife' by Audrey Niffeneggar. If you read through the book, many scenes I've written are a translation of a scene from the book. Sometimes, dialogue is directly quoted, but more often it's the scenarios from the original novel that are getting borrowed and reworked. This is not intended in any way to be an infringement of copyright, nor an act of theft of intellectual property.
> 
> WARNINGS: This fic contains references to rape/sexual violence (not Dean/Cas), and I'll flag it at the start of the relevant chapters. There's smut pretty much from the outset, though it doesn't get heavy until later on (I'm classy like that). Unhealthy coping mechanisms are referenced, such as promiscuity and alcoholism. There are also mentions of child abuse/neglect/endangerment.
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: Kid!Dean is mentioned in the tags for this story, but there isn't any sex before he's a consenting adult.

_Thursday, October 4 th, 1991 (Dean is 20)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

No matter how many times I come to this damn library, I doubt I’ll ever be able to get over the way the entrance hall looms massive as you walk into it.

I don’t normally feel like libraries are particularly welcoming places, and it’s not like I feel any different about the Newberry. Me and it have had to spend so much time together recently that we’ve had to figure out our differences. I guess. The elevator still makes a point of whining at me as it takes me up to the Special Collections section, where I know Sam’ll be ferreted away somewhere, studying for his finals. He’s not like me; he treats this place like an old friend. Me and it are just reluctant acquaintances.

As usual, the place is filled with a low, constant buzz; the sound of many people brushing their fingers along pages and inhaling the words. Sam’s not at the easily accessible tables in the front, at the top of the stairs. He never is, son of a bitch, he’s always in that beat up arm chair around the back that I swear shouldn’t really be in the place at all. Credit to Sam if he hauled the damn thing up here himself, though I doubt it. Kid’s got a rod up his ass about following rules; surest goodie two-shoes I’ve ever known in my life.

I duck between the stacks, keeping my head to the ground. My shoulder bumps into someone else and I send him staggering back. He hits the shelf, causing to emit a cloud of dust, but it doesn’t budge. His books are scattered on the marble floor. “I’m sorry,” he says; the words are reflexive, designed to avoid conflict, and are spoken in a voice that makes my hand freeze dead still on the book I’m already reaching down to grab for him.

I stand up slowly, offering the book, and find myself looking right at Castiel. _Castiel_. I have known him all my life, and here he is; right now. Right here. _Actually_ here. He clears his throat and I realise I’ve been staring, which in my defence is totally warranted. He’s got a pair of glasses perched on his nose that I sure as hell know are entirely unnecessary, so he must be wearing them solely for aesthetic purposes, and damn, he made a good call on that one. He raises an eyebrow in question.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp. I was breathless – again totally justified given the circumstances. I rack my brains, trying to remember how he said this was supposed to work. It was always so different when he came to meet me. He _knew_ me. Nothing in his expression remotely suggests he knows me now, though. I squash the disappointment that begins to encroach on the joy of this moment by reminding myself pointedly that Cas is actually there, you idiot, and he’s got no idea who you are and you’re standing there gawping at him like a total fucking creeper. “I’m Dean Winchester, I knew you when I was a kid…” I stammer, shaking my head. The words are lost.

“When you were a kid?” he echoes, blinking at me, obviously perplexed.

I laugh nervously, because it’s so ridiculous that this is actually happening. I have no idea where to start because I’ve been in love with the man in front of me for as long as I can remember, but he has no memories of me at all. But this is Cas, my Cas, my very own angel, who whirled me in the air and flew me across oceans, Cas who stayed up with me the first night I got drunk and cradled my sorry ass all the way through my hangover, Cas who cradled me against his chest and told me this world was built for me, for us. And he has no idea who the hell I am.

The last time I saw him he was trailing his tongue over the curve of my hips. That tongue darts across his lips now, and I could almost cry with joy at the sight of him here, really here. Instead of trying to explain, I stand taller, drawing myself to my full height. I’ve a good two, three inches over him now, and I’m sure I never used to. He’s peering up at me, blue eyes twinkling. It’s almost enough to make me lose my nerve and pounce on him there and then, but he’d probably file for assault charges or something. Can angels fire for assault charges? I file the question away with the millions of others that I’ve been waiting so long to get solid, tangible answers too, and clasp my hands in front of mmy chest like I’m praying to him. He quirks an eyebrow. Well, he’s amused, so that’s got to be something, right?

“We should grab a coffee.” If I could see them right now, I know Cas’ feather’s would be all ruffled. He ducks his head, and for an impossibly long moment I think he’s going to say no. But he says yes.

We plan to meet at my favourite coffee shop tonight, and I try to wipe the stupid grin off my face because Cas is looking at me like I’m crazy. In all fairness, I do probably seem insane to him right now. Once its all arranged Cas walks past me and leaves me alone in the stacks and I just stand there, gawping, and I forget about Sam’s lunch in my bag, and I forget about societal norms and appearing like a functional, mentally stable individual, and run as fast as I can out of the library like some crazed little boy, and pull the first person I see – a woman in a business suit – into a hug, before whooping and continuing down the street.

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

I love the Newberry. I love libraries in general, actually. They are quiet, but still filled with small, human sounds; the kind that make it easier to exist like this. When I’m alone, sometimes I forget, and I find myself with gigantic plumage that shouldn’t be there, flickering as it attempts to reconcile it’s existence in this very _here_ sort of place. I find it difficult to stick in any one particular here unless I’m surrounded by human sounds. But not too many; too many and I’m gone again. The balance is delicate and precise. I still haven’t perfected it.

Of course, the primary reason I come to this library is the books. Books I can understand. Between the covers that I trail my fingers across are contained a thousand different heres and a million different theres, all slotted into this one. Like me, I suppose. I find myself stroking the spine of an ancient copy of Paradise Lost. The way the events are retold in this volume are melodramatic in a way that I find wholly appropriate. It’s funny, the way humans have come to think of us, the transient beings that slip in and out of their world. No angel would speak of things the ways this book manages to, except for perhaps Gabriel, and that whole charade doesn’t seem to be working out well for him at all. He was in my apartment again last night, shouting and raving. He tried to convince me to go home; I told him I was already home; he said I was an idiot; I hit him in the face. It was a fairly typical exchange.

I am in a daze, clutching the volume of Paradise Lost and a small paperback I’d picked up downstairs to my chest. I am thinking already about the familiar words I’m about to sit and read when I’d knocked almost completely off my feet by an astoundingly beautiful human with wide green eyes who hands me the books he just knocked right out of my hands with an expression on his face that makes me unequivocally sure he knows me for exactly what I really am.

There’s something about the constellation of pale freckles across his nose that ties me to the ground and make it impossible for me to speak. I think about Michel’s lessons, moments he turned into Key Stones, moments that ground my long, non-linear existence to something real, solid, stuck in time in ways that I am desperately trying to be. We define ourselves around these moments; sometimes they are brief, other times they can last for decades. I’ve never had a Moment that wasn’t forced upon me by another angel in one way or another, right up until now. I cannot breathe. For whatever reason, my lungs just will not work. I have to fight to maintain the warped field that disguises the reality of myself, a thin protective barrier that allows me to live around humans as though I am one of their own. The man introduces himself as Dean Winchester, and invites me out for coffee, at which point I realise I ought to at least attempt to regain the capacity to speak. I agree, of course, and slip away from the fascinating creature before he can cause me to do what Gabriel refers to as “fuck up”.

Five minutes later, I’m on the steps outside, and I realise that maybe this is it; this is the reason I’ve been branded as an outcast my entire life. Castiel the oddball. Castiel the freak. All for this one human standing in front of me, in no way different from any of the others I’ve seen and spoken to and watched from afar. I’m beginning to get angry when Dean Winchester brushes past me again, hurtles down the stairs, and hugs a woman I’m almost certain he doesn’t know. Human behaviour has never ceased to fascinate or perplex me, but it would seem – as he skips down the street – that Dean Winchester is a very particular kind of human. The sight of him like that makes my eyes sting.

**_LATER_ **

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

Moving through time like this is ridiculous. How absurd that an interdimensional, non-time-linear being be in a rush. That’s the trouble with Earth; you stick yourself down here, fasten yourself to the world the way I’ve done, and you have to obey by the rules. Humans are slaves to their clocks, and for the first I discover that so am I. It all seems so arbitrary. Clothing is another rule that I must abide by, and for some reason it simply does not clean itself, which is why I’m standing in this laundrette, watching my shirt whirl round and round in the washing machine. I wonder if it might not have been quicker to simply got to a shop and buy a new one. I remind myself that my supply of human currency may well become finite; after yesterday I’m not sure I can rely on Gabriel providing more for me.

Once my shirt is washed I transfer it to a drier, and then once that machine has finished working too, I slip it on. It’s warm, and creased. I have no time to fix that. I fumble in my pocket; at the very least I remembered to bring my tie. I fold myself back into my trench coat, and make my way to the coffee shop Dean had indicated he would meet me at. Of course, he’s already sat at one of the tall tables in the window, under the soft like of a lamp. It makes his dark blonde hair shimmer gold. He’s not dressed up at all, and I feel slightly foolish in my shirt and tie. He’s wearing a grey cotton shirt that leaves his long arms bare to lie on the table in front of him. He smiles at me with more of that knowing enthusiasm, and I take the seat opposite him.

I smile at him. He blushes. He is, I realise with a jolt, extraordinarily handsome. I feel a twinge of guilt for my earlier rage. How could I have thought he was just like everyone else, even for a moment? He peers across at me with eyes the colour of summer leaves; green but somehow warm. Perhaps its because of the face they are set in; his golden hair; his pretty freckles. He makes me shudder. I’m not like Michel or some of the others of my kind who can look right at a human ‘soul’ and tell you right away exactly who he was and who he was going to be, understand him the way we understand each other. Maybe it’s because this is where I was always going to be, in the end. Living like them, among them. Never one of them, though.

“Well, hey there,” Dean says with a grin. His eyes flicker to the space around me, as though expecting to see wings tucked behind my chair. I sit a little straighter. He can’t know that about me, can he? That would seem… it would seem unreasonable. Dean notices he’s made me uncomfortable and blushes again, the soft pink colour looks wonderful on his freckled skin. “It’s been a long time,” he tells me, warmly.

“Has it?” I press, cautiously.

He grins and ducks his head. “Yeah, quite a while.” He looks up at me again, meeting my gaze with an expression so intense that I don’t know what to say. “It’s good to see you, Cas.”

“Cas?” I repeat.

“People don’t call you that?”

“Most people don’t call me anything,” I explain.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

I nod, leaning forwards. “Do… do you call me that?”

“Yeah, that’s your name,” he explains with a chuckle. “Unless you’ve been lying to me for most of my life, and that would be pretty fucked up,” he added with a small frown.

“Your whole life?” I repeat, trying to control my expression. I plead the universe that he’s not my offspring, somehow. I’ve been mentally undressing him since I arrived.  

“Not my _whole_ life. Just since I was in 1 st grade,” he tells me. I release a shuddery breath of relief. He looks to be around twenty. If I’m right, I’ve known him for fourteen years. Well. He’s known me for that long. I’ve known him for…. I glance at my watch. Around six hours. Dean chuckles like he knows what I’m thinking. It strikes me that he ought to be confused as to why I don’t know him, why I haven’t aged. My mind is brimming with impossible questions. “I’m sorry – I should have said, I know why you don’t know me… I know what you are. I know that, um, that none of the things I remember have happened for you yet,” he assures me. I take a deep breath.

“You’re my Key Stone,” I breathe.

“You always said lynch-pin,” he tells me with a shrug. “But, you know. Key Stone is fine,” he adds nervously. “I’m sorry, I just. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

I can only stare at him for a while. I have to focus on this moment, on this thing in front of me. I remind myself that I need to continue to breathe or else I’ll end up passing out and that’s almost as bad as disappearing. It’s him. He’s it. The reason I’m here.

“Have you… seen me often?” I ask him cautiously. His answering smile almost makes me forget to breathe again.

“Hang on a second,” he urges me, and disappears under the table for a few moments. When he returns, he hands me a piece of lined paper, torn from an A4 sized school exercise book. The handwriting is my own. Each line has several dates jammed into it. In total there must be around two hundred. I gulp. “You wrote them down for me after the first couple of times, so I’d know when you were coming,” he tells me. He smiles oddly. “Sorry, it’s just. I remember why you gave this to me.” I wait for him to explain. “I wanted you to prove to me that you were… you were coming back,” he explains with another shrug. “You asked if I still had it the last time I saw you, and asked me to bring it with me when we met for coffee if I did. Proof for both of us.”

I smooth my hand over it. There are so many of them, it’s daunting. “How poetic.”

Dean smiles. “Yeah.”

“When was the las time I saw you?” I ask, my eyes scanning the dates on the paper.

“Two years ago.” This seems to upset him.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I say. He just shakes his head. “What did we do? There’s a lot of time to fill here…”

Dean shrugs. “It changed as I got older. When I was real small I just liked to make you sandwiches and stuff. The first time I just got home from school and you were standing in the back yard. I don’t remember much, just that you were there, and you seemed massively tall. The next time was the big one for me, because that time you showed up all wings and everything. My parents worked so they were out of the house a lot, so we never really got into any issues. Then the big thing happened, and after that things were a little different. I had a little bit of a religious crisis; I asked you a lot about God,” Dean tells me. He cracks up a little, giggling to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m just remembering some of the dumb things I used to say to you. I had a pretty rough time during my teens, and you helped me get through it all. You were very patient, sitting there and listening to my sexuality crisis when you knew all along how it was going to be. You were very sweet about it, kind of parental. It was nice,” he explains. I grimace at ‘parental’. He laughs. “I spent subsequent years trying to get you to fall in love with me, though you didn’t seem to be having any of it for a very long time. We got there in the end.” He looks up at me through his eyelashes and I feel my heart pound hard in my chest. His smile slowly dies on his lips and he looks down at the table again. “Sorry, am I going to fast?”

“This is a little overwhelming,” I admit. He grins.

“Sorry.” He laughs, running a hand through his sunny hair. “Man, this is weird. My whole life you’ve been this pariah of knowledge, and now… now I’m the one holding all the cards,” he sounds astonished. I gulp. He looks across at me, tilting his head so it’s on the same angle as mine. My hands are clasped on the table, knuckles white. Dean walks his hand over two them, scales them like his own hand is a tiny five-legged beast.

“It must be… odd…” I manage to say, and I force myself to smile at him.

“Hey, I know,” Dean says, clasping my joined hands in both of his. “If you like, we could pretend that this is the first time we’ve met, you know, like regular people,” this thought appears to be profoundly amusing to Dean. It does interesting things to the way I fit into my trousers and I find myself laughing a little too. His mood is intoxicating.

“I’m afraid that as far as I’m concerned, we really have just met,” I remind him. He laughs harder for a few moments, and quiets down with a sigh.

“I know.” He looks away, at the other people in the café. He stirs his coffee absently, though there’s nothing in it to stir. I decide to approach the situation in the way he has just suggested, and I clear my throat in preparation, catching his attention. He looks back at me with wide eyes.

“So, Dean. What do you do?”

The question seems to equally pain and amuse him. “I’m an artist, actually,” he explains. “Though not a very good one,” he adds.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” I say. He laughs.

“You haven’t seen any of my artwork, so you wouldn’t know.”

“Oh? That seems unlikely after fourteen years.”

“But Castiel,” he says with a devilish wink that sets my insides on fire. “We’ve only just met!” I didn’t know I was capable of this strength of human attraction. “And what about you? What do you do?” he asks.

“You mean you don’t know that already?” I ask, raising and eyebrow and sipping my latte. “I thought you were holding all the cards.”

“Yeah, well. I know everything and nothing. I know how your tongue feels in my mouth and how massive your wings are. I know you speak every language, even the dead ones. I know how you like your tea, but other than stuff like that…” He shakes his head. “You were always very selective with what you shared with me about the future. _Our_ future,” he confesses. “So, spit it out; what do you do?”

I take a deep breath. “Mostly I read. I study people, the things they do, the ways they are. Humans fascinate me,” I explain. Dean rolls his eyes at me. It’s my turn to blush.

“So, you live on Earth then? Not in Heaven or wherever?” he asks eagerly.

“Surely I must have told you that.” He shrugs.

“I wasn’t sure if you only took up residence here after we’d met,” he confesses. It doesn’t seem like he’s holding many cards at all.

“And I assume you live on Earth too?” I joke. He rolls his eyes.

“Yeah. I moved up here with Sammy so he could go to the private school he got a scholarship for.”

“Sammy?”

Dean grins crookedly. “Yeah; my pain in the ass little brother.”

“Have we met?”

Dean shakes his head. “No.”

“So you, take care of him?”

Dean looks at me as though I’ve said something incredibly insulting, and I look at the table. It’s unfair of him to get angry, but then I must seem unfair to him that I don’t know. I assume he’ll fill me in as some point or other, so that I can understand the dark look in his eyes.

“So what’s the deal with your living arrangements? You live with Gabe?”

“You mean Gabriel?” I ask, astounded. “No, of course not. He lives on the other plane of existence. Do I… do I still talk to him in my future?”

Dean looks conflicted, as though he’d unsure whether or not he’s allowed to tell me that. In the end he offers me a nod. “Yeah, he’s your best friend. He even visited me one time,” he explains.

“Oh.”

“You seem surprised by that,” Dean realises, correctly.

“Yes, I… I just assumed he’d cut me off now that it’s happened. Now the lynchpin is in place, as you say,” I admit. Dean smiles.

“So, you live alone?” Dean redirects the question. He’s looking up through his eyelashes again. I have a small hope that this is going the way of the horribly misguided conversations I’ve had with various men and women in bars and clubs, and my mind quickly gets to work replacing the images of perhaps a few too many nobodies with images of Dean. They would definitely have kicked me out of Heaven sooner or later. Then again, they let Gabriel stick around. Perhaps it’s an unspoken truth that we’re actually a lot more like humans than we’d like to admit, at least when it comes down to sex.

“I have a cat,” I confess, and he groans.

He rolls his eyes. “I knew you’d have a cat,” he complains.

“Are cats a particular issue? Because to be honest I’d rather you than the cat.”

“Hey, I’m not a stray you’re picking up,” Dean warns, but he’s still looking at me in a way that’s hopeful.

“What on earth gave you that impression?” I ask. He blushes and averts his gaze. It’s cute but irritating now my mind has set out what its desired course for the evening would be. “So yes, besides the cat, I live alone in an apartment in Roscoe Village.”

“Fancy,” he nods approvingly.

“I could… show you around if you like.”

“Sound’s great,” he tells me, and he grabs the leather coat he has slung over the back of his chair, and we leave. It’s cold and my trench coat does little to insulate me from it, so I’m shivering quite violently by the time we’re at my place. My hands are shaking so bad that Dean gives up on waiting for me to unlock the door and snatches the key off me to let us in. I grin.

It’s dark apart from the orange light from the streetlamps outside. I already know where the cat will be; sleeping on the sofa beside the window. I flick on the lights and take off my coat, and turn to face the man standing awkwardly just inside. He’s distracted for a moment, his eyes busy analysing everything about the apartment, until they finally rest on me. He’s not smiling, he’s just watching me with this look that makes me feel as though all my muscles are actually springs and he’s somehow forcing them down and the tension is building and it is quickly becoming unbearable.

He saunters up to me like he’s the king of the universe, and even though I know for certain that’s not true, I swear in that moment that’s exactly what he is. He kisses me, and it’s surprisingly sweet. I was desperate for him to chew me just a second ago but this kiss is the kiss of someone who knows exactly the set of my mouth. It makes me wonder how many times I have kissed him before. I’m not allowed to wonder that for long, though: he guides me back and we end up on the sofa and he’s sat right on my cock and there’s just a few layers of fabric between us and it turns out that’s a fairly successful way to get _all_ of my attention.

I let my hands fumble their way around his body to his belt. Belts are complicated. I’m just beginning to try to unpick it when for some inexplicable reason Dean stops kissing me. I look up, panicked; have I misunderstood? Surely we haven’t got far enough for me to have done something wrong already? But he’s smiling wickedly, sat there. He rocks gently back and forth. I moan without meaning too.

“What?” I plead, my hands scraping desperately at his jeans. He chuckles. My fingernails catch on the denim. He rocks forward again and I gasp involuntarily.

“Nothing. I’m just… enjoying this,” Dean says, with a shrug. I groan and start to unbutton my shirt in lieu of removing his pants. He watches. “You never let me do this, before,” he admits, moving ever so slightly again. I give up with the buttons and lie back against the sofa, hands holding fast on Dean’s arms.

“It’s killing me to let you do this now. I have half the mind to throw you on the ground and tear off your clothes,” I groan. He kisses my throat.

“You could do that.”

“You’ve been warned. I’m not just a human being, you know,” I remind him. It’s exhilarating to say it out loud. He kisses down my chest. His teeth graze my nipple. I shudder, moving myself under him, and make myself groan.

“Yeah, and I’ve got you _right_ here,” he whispers into me.

“I can think of other places you can have me,” I gasp.

“Oh yeah?” he taunts, thrusting his hips forward a little bit. “Think of this as payback.”

“For what?”  I gasp desperately.

“Years of dangling yourself in front of me the way you did,” he laughs.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” I promise him.

“I think it’s too late for that,” he mumbles, and he’s entirely correct. I’ve figured out the mechanics of his belt. I pull it through the loops in one swift movement of my arm and before he has a chance to stop me I’ve unbuttoned his jeans. I tug them down his hips, exposing more of the black boxers that have been peaking over his waistband all evening. I paw the head of his dick through the cotton and he moans deliciously, and I use the moment of weakness to shove him to the side. His legs are still around my waist, only now I’m looking down at him beneath me, and he’s looking back with hungry eyes.

“God, Cas,” he whispers. I kiss him hard, balancing on one hand and pulling down his pants with the other. He wriggles compliantly and I throw them over the back of the sofa so I can run my hand uninterrupted from his nipples to the base of his cock. “Oh, _please_ ,” he begs.

“Bed,” I command.

He shakes his head. “No time!” he protests, grabbing his own cock and biting his lips.

“You’ve waited two years, you can make it another hundred feet,” I growl, starting to untangle myself. Without warning he shoves his hands down my pants and tugs.

“Can you?” he asks coyly – well, as coy as you can be when you’re giving someone a hand job.

I shake my head, wordless. No. The answer is definitely no.

**_THE NEXT MORNING_ **

**❣**

**DEAN**

I wake up and for a split second I have no idea where the hell I am, and then roll onto my side and there’s the face of a sleeping angel literally three inches from my nose. He’s still dramatically wingless. I’d hoped that in his sleep he’d not be able to hold onto whatever power it takes to keep them invisible. From what he’s said before, it requires a certain amount of concentration. He must not be sleeping very deeply. I smile and climb carefully out from under him.

His bedroom has an on-suite bathroom. I pee and splash my face with water and almost jump out of my skin when I reach for a towel because it moves under my hand and makes a little whining sound. “At last, cat, we meet,” I murmur to it. It’s a slender grey thing with eyes wide and blue. Actually, it looks hell of a lot like Cas. It’s about as impressed to see me as I am to see it, and curls back up to sleep once it’s concluded I’m not offering it food or trying to make it surrender it’s sleeping spot.

There’s a post-it note on the mirror above the sink: Brush Teeth, Eat Breakfast is written on it in Cas’ tidy script. Cute. I walk back out into the bedroom and I’m staggered by him, lying there in sun that’s pouring in through the wide curtain. We hadn’t stopped to draw the curtains last night. Thankfully he lives on the second floor and his bedroom faces out of a small tree-filled garden, so nobody’s had the shock of being greeted first thing in the morning by the sight of my bare ass. Speaking of which, Cas’ own bare ass has been mercifully exposed by the way he’s twisted into the sheets in my momentary absence. There’s a red handprint right across it, and I feel a swell of pride in my chest knowing that I put it there. He’s mine. And he’s here. Really here. I take a deep shuddering breath, press my eyes tight shut, and open them again. He’s still there. Obviously there’s no way to tell, but he doesn’t _seem_ like he’s going to go anywhere any time soon.

Satisfied he’s not going to pull any of his disappearing acts within the next five to ten minutes, I decide that I will go and get coffee to wake him with. It’s one of the best things in the world, I think, to wake up and find your house filled with the aroma of coffee. Not that it happens much at home; Sam’s hardly an early bird. There was a brief period last year where he took up a voluntary morning swim class so every Wednesday for about three weeks I woke up with a mug of coffee waiting for me. I wonder if he’s alright, if he managed to get to school okay on his own, and shake myself; Sam’s a big dumb kid but he’s big enough and dumb enough to cope for one morning. And, okay, so he’s not actually dumb at all. He’s real smart. And sixteen. He’ll be fine.

Cas’ kitchen is separated from his living room only by an island of cabinets. The place is airy and light, exactly the kind of thing I’d expect him to have. It’s fascinating, finding out where he really lives, this secret place that’s loomed over my since my childhood, filled with magic and excitement and love. I’m so happy I feel slightly delirious. Most of his cupboards are empty – funny, I’d always thought he’d be a culinary genius as well as an every-other-kind-of-genius. I find the coffee; it’s the kind that you have to grind up before you put in the machine. The grinder is out on the side, and evidently well used. Once I’ve started it brewing I ghost through the cabinets, searching for something to snack on.

“You’re naked,” Cas says. I turn; his hair is all sleep messed and sex knotted. He’s wearing a grey silk bathrobe that’s just unfairly flattering. This Cas doesn’t know me yet, doesn’t understand my ins and outs. I have a sudden terrifying thought that he’s forgotten exactly who I am. “Dean?” he asks groggily.

“I am both of those things,” I confirm.

“You made coffee,” he acknowledges.

“Yup,” I grin.

“You can stay again,” he mutters, impressed. His words simultaneously fill me with butterflies and chop me down. I don’t know how I’d always thought he’d know me when I found him. I mean, I knew he wouldn’t actually know me, but I’d always thought it would be… I don’t know what I thought it would be. I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it at all. When he was gone, he was gone. I could only imagine him appearing the way he used to and knowing like that, just like he always had. I sigh.

“I saw your note in the bathroom,” I tell him. He ducks his head; he’s embarrassed. I’ve never seen him embarrassed like that before; flustered maybe, but not blushing.

“Yes. My “people skills” are “rusty”,” he confesses, marking out the quotation marks with his fingers. “It takes some getting used to, you know. Having to feed myself, take care of myself.”

“Oh yeah, must be real hard for you,” I laugh. Cas looks uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry I have nothing to make you for breakfast,” he says quietly. “Will you allow me to take you out?”

“Well, I normally give it a couple days of stewing over before the second date, you know, just to get them all riled up again…”

Cas looks crestfallen. “Oh, I understand. Perhaps I could drive you home?” he asks hopefully.

“I was joking, dumbass,” I explain. He sighs with relief.

“So I can take you for breakfast?”

“Not exactly,” I muse. He looks interested. “I can think of more important things that need to happen first,” I tell him. His expression doesn’t change for a few seconds and when it does, it blossoms into a huge grin of understanding.

“Oh, you can?” he presses.

“Definitely.”

Later I’m lying with my ear to his chest, listening to the thud of his heart beneath his ribs, thinking about the last time I lay that way, listening to the sound of him existing in the moment, right there along with me. He combs his fingers through my hair. For him it’s the first time. He sighs and the sound is massive inside of his chest. I smile.

“What?” I ask.

“I was just thinking that it’s very peaceful to lie here with you this way,” he tells me, quietly, but I know that there’s more he wants to tell me but isn’t sure whether or not to say it. It’s a moment of indecision that I’ve become very familiar with. In the past, it’s always preceding him sighing and pushing me away, telling me it was time to go. But now we’re here, and he’s now, so wonderfully now. And I’m the one holding the cards. So instead of waiting, I turn, propping myself on my elbow, careful to keep my body pressed against his, and with my free hand trace the shape of his lips. He kisses at my fingers.

“Just say what you’re thinking,” I urge him. His blue eyes flick up from where they’d been lingering on my wrists, and he smiles sadly. “Come on, Cas,” I encourage him.

“I don’t want to say something that might upset you,” he hedged. I kiss the tip of his nose.

“It obviously isn’t going to upset me enough to make me leave, and if it does, I’ll be back eventually. I think we’re kind of inevitable,” I remind him.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he admits. “I didn’t think it was customary to discuss previous sexual partners with one whom you wish to spend a lot of time with in the future.”

“Tell me something, Cas,” I say. He must have picked up on the challenge in my voice because he shifts a little so his eyes are more level with mine. I smirk. “Did I seem like a novice last night to you?” I ask him.

“No,” he admits. He blushes again. I could get used to that.

“Did I seem like the kind of guy who would go years without getting laid just because I knew I’d eventually be able to have sex with you again?”

He smiles, “I suppose not.”

“And don’t you think I might have thought it would be a good idea to get some practice in between now and the last time we slept together considering how intimidatingly good you are in bed?”

He blushes harder, but he’s also grinning. “That might’ve been an idea.”

“So,” I conclude.

“So?”

“So what were you thinking about not telling me?”

“With others its always been… brief. It was a very… I don’t know how else to phrase it, but it was very much an in-out relationship. As in, in my bed, then out of it right away,” he confesses. I frown.

“So I’m your first cuddle?” I muse. He nods. “I’m glad I get to be at least one first for you.”

Cas thinks about that for a moment. “Am I your first?”

I close my eyes before I answer. “First fuck. First kiss. First crush.”

“First crush?” he asks, and then he kisses me the way he’s supposed to, the way he did the last time we saw each other, all slow and soft and careful like I might break beneath his lips or something. "Can I ask - was the sex what you were referring to before when you said there was something you wanted to do before we went to get breakfast?”

“Well, actually I was thinking we should maybe get dressed?”

He laughs. “Excellent idea.”


	2. Lessons In Survival

_Thursday, June 7, 1973_ _(Cas has been Earthbound for 2 years, and also hasn't been Earthbound at all)_

 

 **CASTIEL** : I’m standing across the street from the Art Institute of Chicago, and I know already why I’m here, because I’m also standing on the steps – smaller, brighter, but still me – clutching Gabriel’s hand, and I can remember seeing myself. They have come here together. It was one of the first times he brought me here, and I remember the argument he’d had with Michael before we left very clearly. _We know its going to happen anyway, so what’s the point in making him feel like shit about it?_ Gabriel had said. _It is not the way things ought to be_ was Michael’s answer. Gabriel is here to bring myself and I together, and we’re going to learn pickpocketing, and when I reach them, he disappears without a word.

“Can’t we just look at the art?” smaller me begs. I had forgotten what my manifestion had been like when I was so new, resembling a human child. I was already fascinated with humanity and the world that surrounded it. I was beginning to feel at home in my human skin, though finding the physical representation of my ability to get anywhere at any time rather difficult to manage. In all honesty, I’ve only just managed to master the art of folding my wings away without having to concentrate completely on doing so.

“No, you need to know this. How are you going to survive if you can’t steal anything?” I ask him, because already know I did.

“Charity,” he proposes.

“Begging is a drag. Humans have a lot to say about giving but they don’t give as much as they say. You’ll get dragged off by the police. Now listen: when we get inside, you must stay back and pretend we don’t know each other, but stay close enough to observe. If I hand you anything, don’t drop it; put it in your pocket as fast as you can. Okay?”

“I guess. Can we look at St George?”

“Sure.” We cross Michigan Avenue and weave our way between frowning students and keening youngsters basking in the warm sun of the afternoon. Small me touches the bronze lions as we pass them, trailing his fingers fondly over the metal.

This whole occasion is morally questionable, and I admit that I’m having a hard time convincing myself that I’m doing the right thing. On the one hand, the skills I’m about to impart upon my younger self are essential to our survival and crucial to our decision to come and stay here. I know that this day will inform my moral opinion of myself, and seed my thoughts on the idea of moral opinion overall as subjective, but I can’t shake the feeling that what I’m doing here is corrupting an incredibly vulnerable, frightened thing. I sigh; somebody has to do it, and nobody else will.

It’s a promotional Free Entry day, so the Institute is a solid, moving ocean of bodies. We stand in line, move through the entry, and slowly climb the staircase. Small me hovers a few feet behind, having clearly paid very close attention to my earlier instruction. This is good; it will make things easier. We enter the European Galleries, making our way  right to St George who stands, as always, poised ready plunge a suspiciously delicate looking spear into a yellow-chested dragon. I remember being my younger-self, and feeling relieved that this painting was not of moments later in the battle where the spear was already in place. The dragon’s fate is fixed, but frozen inches from delivery.

“It is not as difficult as you might suspect,” I tell him. He looks up at me curiously. We have th gallery to ourselves for the moment, but soon we’ll be moving through people again. “You must pay close attention. Look for those who seem distracted. Most men keep their wallets in the inside pocket of their jackets or the rear pocket of their trousers,” I point to where on my own body for reference. “But women tend to carry a purse slung over their shoulder so it generally hangs over their backs. If you’re on the street, you can simply grab the whole purse, but if you choose to do so remember you must be certain you can outrun anybody nearby who might chase you. It’s preferable to take without anyone noticing. Neater,” I advise.

“Gabriel showed me a movie where they practicing thievery by hanging a suit with bells. If the suit was disturbed, the bells would ring,” he tells me.

“Yes, I remember. You can try that on your own, if you would like,” I won’t, and I know that, but I say it anyway, “now follow me.” I lead him away from the fifteenth century over to the nineteenth. This is what the institute is famous for; Impressionist works, tiny smudges of colour used to represent an all-encompassing whole. I rather like it now, but I remember the first time I saw these works – which is also now – I found the style frustrating. I look at myself, just tall enough to glimpse a few corners of a Monet haystack, and frowning at it. “Castiel,” I hiss, and bring his attention back to me.

The woman I have chosen is small and utterly absorbed by the painting in front of her, craning her neck and rolling up onto her tiptoes and back down again intermittently. I pretend to be looking at it too. I walk, bump into her mid-tip-toes-transition, and catch her elbow to prevent her from falling. She’s flustered and I catch her eye. “I am so sorry, ma’am, I wasn’t paying attention. Are you alright? It’s so crowded…” my hand is on her purse, but her eyes are fixed on mine. They are a gift; Gabriel calls them ‘entrancing’, but begrudgingly so.  It makes me wonder whether he’s jealous, although that would be ridiculous. My fingers close around her wallet and I smile the way I have been rehearsing in the mirror for years. I look her up and down as I slide the wallet into my sleeve, and she smiles back, blushing. I duck my head and turn away and walk, walk. Small me follows a few steps behind. I hurry down the stairs and duck into the Men’s room so we can rendezvous.

“That was unusual,” he informs me, “she was looking at you oddly.”

“She’s lonely,” I euphemize, with a shrug. The smile is one I rehearse for picking up humans in the corners of bars and clubs, and it’s surprisingly successful, but it did start out as an innocent ploy to lure people closer so I could steal their money. Perhaps not so innocent, on second thought.

I open the wallet, remove the item inside one by one and lay them on the toilet seat between us in the cramped stall. She’s a member of the Institute, and an Art Major according to her college ID card. She has a credit card, a reminder on a post-it note to buy milk, and thirty-six-and-a-quarter dollars in cash. Small me observes these items carefully, then I replace them in the order I took them out, and hand it to him. He looks at it like it’s on fire. “Give this to a security guard,” I tell him. He tilts his head.

“Why?” he asks.

“It was only a demonstration – it wouldn’t be right for us to keep it if we don’t need it,” I explain to him. We leave the bathroom, and he runs to the guard. He comes back slowly and we walk two breadths of ourselves apart, me half a step ahead of him. I’m looking for easy marks, and just ahead of me I spot the perfect practice piece, recognising him immediately. It’s as though he’s deliberately playing the part of us; lanky, with thinning hair and polyester trousers, his wallet practically hanging out of them as he talks animatedly to the girl beside him.

I have no qualms about approaching this man, and I know my younger self appreciated that his first mark would be one so desperately asking for it. He has a clear view as I slip my hand into the guy’s pocket, smooth and fast, and pass it to myself. He shoves it into his pants, and I speed up, passing our mark, and walk ahead.

I demonstrate a few times more, so myself can observe alternate methods of liberating wallets. Once I’ve covered breast-pockets, backpacks and a few different ways you can distract people in order for them to allow you to grab their cash, I decide it’s time. He’s more relaxed now, and even perhaps beginning to find this more exhilarating than nerve-wracking. “Now,” I say to him. “You try.”

He’s immediately stiff again. “I cannot.”

“You can. Be aware of your surroundings; find someone.”

He looks about himself at the mass of people. There’s a day group  of kids from some childcare programme, two-by-two in a line, clutching each other and listening eagerly to their teacher. “Not here.” He says. I nod.

“Fine, where?”

“The restaurant?”

We walk silently. I remember the whole thing incredibly vividly; I was terrified. Sure enough, when I glance over at him his face is white as a sheet, and he’s staring forwards with a weirdly determined expression on his face that almost makes me laugh because I know what comes next. We stand at the back of the line, and he looks around. In front of is an elderly man with a cane. He smells like soap, and is grumbling unpleasantly to a sour-faced woman that we assume is his wife.

Small Castiel approaches him, one of the wallets we stole earlier on already in his outstretched hand. “Sir?” he asks. The man turns flustered. “Is this yours?” The man packs his breast pocket, and shakes his head.

“Hmm, no it isn’t, young man,” he leans closer and takes the wallet from his hand and opens it. As he rifles through it’s contents, his wife leans over curiously. Castiel’s hand darts smoothly into the purse over her shoulder and produces a wallet. He presses into my hand and I tuck it into my sleeve. “Perhaps you ought to turn it in,” the man suggests.

We leave in the direction of the security desk, but walk right past it and out of the Institute.

“You did well,” I tell him. He nods. I take the money from the wallet he’s just taken and hand it to him. “The money is all we need. You were fantastic,” I assure him. He smiles weakly.

“You’re a more amiable companion that Gabriel,” he tells me as we sip coffee, purchased with our ill-gotten gains.

“I find that hard to believe,” I scoff. But small me looks sad; maybe I’m forgetting just how brusque Gabriel was when all of this first started happening.

“Is it true that you’re here to teach me things because I shall be Earth bound too?” he asks me. I sigh. Poor small self. He resembles a human child of around twelve years old. I can see the area behind his back flickering intermittently as he tries to contain the wings that he’s not supposed to have.

“Yes, it is,” I confess.

“Michael says it’s all inevitable, that I’ll come here and things will be the way he says they shall, and Gabriel gets angry. I can’t see the way they can, I don’t understand.”

“You’re young; they are very, very old. They Know, and we do not. We can only to understand ourselves. Do you like it here?” I ask him. He nods, and I smile at him. “You will make the decisions you must, Castiel.”

“When I am Earthbound, can I live with you?” he asks in a small voice. I sigh.

“We are one.” I answer, because I know I did. A translucent moment. His eyes are wide with comprehension; three words I didn’t understand, and then I did. He nodded.

“I’m going home,” he tells me. I smile.

“So am I,” I reply.

* * *

 

 

_September 28, 1982 (Cas has been Earthbound 2 months, and 6 months)_

 

 **CASTIEL** : I’m in the flat that will become mine in seven years with myself. It’s not been refurbished yet; some of the furniture is here already but its covered in white sheets that are striped grey with dust. It smells like a library, and when I live here it will still smell a little bit like that, though less strongly. It is the only the sixth time I have come unstuck, and three the times I’ve come back to this flat at around the same time. Myself told me the date, and that he’s from four months ahead of me, and then we lean into each other and do what you do when you are discovering your body for the first time and the sensations are raw and visceral and new.

It’s late morning, and because it’s a Sunday I can hear church bells ringing in the distance. My other self seems distracted. I tap his knee. “What?” I ask him. “It is not of import,” he replies. We’re in what will be my study; he’s sat upon the desk and I’m knelt on the floor in front of him. Grey light streams through the grubby window. I hear a crash; probably mice in the old kitchen cabinets. I get up to check that the door is properly locked. Myself seems to be having difficulty speaking, “don’t,” he breathes. I roll my eyes, and check the lock again. “What?” I say again, as I get back onto my knees. I hear a heavy step outside the door.

“Cassie?” It’s Gabriel. The door knob is turning and it turns out I have inadvertently _unlocked_ the door, and we have no time to move, and there’s nothing we can do, either. He sticks his head around the door. “Fuck,” he says, his face crumpling in disgust. “Jesus, Castiel,” he gasps, and slams the door shut. I hear him storm down the hall until his footsteps vanish as he dematerialises. I turn to my other self.

“That was completely and utterly your fault,” I accuse. He’s looking out the window. “This… this business of becoming unstuck in from the linear progression of time in the place is inconvenient but you should at least stop with the self-pity for five minutes in order to prevent such uncomfortable occurrences as that one. Have no you sense of self-preservation?”

“Shut up,” he croaks. “Just shut up.”

“I beg your pardon? I will _not_ , as you say _‘shut up’_ ” I snap, my voice rising. He glowers at me. “It’s not as though it would have been a difficult task; just a word of warning would have been enough.”

“Listen!” he commands. I fall silent. “I… I couldn’t do anything. It was like the first time, at the road side, remember?”

“Oh. Shit.” We traveled back to some freeway, but we were stuck on the other side of one of the turnpikes. A car swerved suddenly into the wrong lane, and the one behind it had no time to stop. It went sailing into the swerving car at around seventy miles per hour. There was a strange black blur around the car, which I couldn’t make sense of, and then it piled straight into the truck instead of it, dislodging its load of sheet metal and sending it cascading into the windshield. I’ve been back there twice, and both times I’ve tried to move, to get there in time to stop the crash, but I can’t. It’s like the air thickens into tar around me, and I can’t get there as fast as I need to.

“When you said I should have done something, you were talking about me changing your future, but for me it’s already happened. It’s my past, and it just is, and there is no way I can change it. I was trying, and it was the trying that made it happen… if I’d not attempted to speak to you, then you would not have made the mistake you did…”

“Then why say anything?”

“You just will, you’ll see,” he explains, gravely. He gets up and goes to the window. “I was just talking about this with myself from 1992. He was telling me that he understands now what Michael said about the unwavering constancy of time. We decide what we can in the moments we do, but those decisions are always going to be. No matter how many times you back and try to change it, you were always going to go back and try to change it,” he explains.

“What about freewill?” I ask him. He shrugs.

“That’s the nature of it. Wherever we are in the universe, time just is. It feels like it’s different here because we’re living like the,” he sighs. “But it’s just the same as in the other plane, in the end. What happens always has and will.”

“Oh.”

“He said he has been to the future, though,” other me offers, to brighten the mood. This possibility has interested me since I first came unstuck.

“Can he change stuff there?” I ask. Other me sighs and shakes his head.

“It already is. Things are inevitable.”

“But doesn’t that mean we’re not responsible for anything that we do?” I ask him. He grins and runs his hand through his hair.

“Thank god for that, right?” he asks. I smile. “But we have to live as though we are responsible.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise our life would be depressing and miserable, we said,” he explains. We both frown. “I think he was speaking from experience.”

“So what happens now?”

“Gabriel won’t speak to you for three weeks. And this…” he gestures at the desk. “We can’t keep meeting like this.”

I sigh. “Okay. Fine. Anything else?”

“Tomorrow you’re going to go to a bar,” he tells me.

“Now?”

“Yes, you’ll be here for a few days. But you’re going to go to a bar, and there’ll be this red head, and you’re going to have sex with her.”

I am a virgin besides my self-felating acts with me. “How?”

“Walk up to her and smile like you’re going to steal her purse,” he explains with a shrug.

“I don’t even know her,” I protest. He shrugs.

“You won’t ever see her again. Trust me.” He’s smirking at me in a way that makes me wonder how much time he’s been spending with Gabriel and make a mental note to avoid him at all costs. “I’m going now,” he tells me, tilting his head to the side.

“Good-bye,” I say.

“Au revoir,” he replies, and there’s a sound like flames, and he’s gone. I go and make myself a coffee in the dilapidated kitchen, and feel cold and alone on this Chicago morning that I don’t belong in.

 

* * *

 

 

_Saturday, May 14, 1983 (Dean is 12)_

 

 **DEAN** : It’s Jo’s birthday but her mom had to work a shift at the diner so we’re all at Charlie’s house to sleep, even Sammy, because dad’s out of town for a couple of days and I can’t just leave him at home on his own. We have pizza and cokes and really small pies and Jo’s dad bought her this amazing cake with two levels on it that said ‘Happy Birthday Jo’ in red swirly writing, but he probably only did that because he’s desperate to prove he still loves her even after the divorce. There were other girls from Jo’s classes at high school but she’s not in any of my classes now so I don’t know any of them. Me and Charlie sat at the edge of the room and ate the cake and watched, and I told her which girls I thought were cute and Charlie told me if she agreed or not. She’s my friend again now – last week she said she wasn’t talking to me because I told her girls weren’t supposed to _like_ like other girls after she told me she had a crush on Christina Thompson from the year above. She told me I was stupid and I got really angry, and she said I’d been a jerk ever since my mom died.

It’s better now all the other girls have gone, and it’s just me, Charlie and Jo. Sam’s here too but he’s in the corner and he’s basically asleep because he’s too young to appreciate sleepovers properly. He had a slice of pizza when it was still warm, but Jo’s mom had bought us loads of it so there’s still plenty to eat now. Jo has sneaked a bottle of Peach Schnapps out of her mom’s cabinet and we all take turns to drink from it but it tastes horrible and it’s thick and makes my tongue feel like wool. Jo has also sneaked ‘The Exorcist’ from her dad’s flat last time she went there. We’re sleeping in the living room because Charlie’s room would be too small for all three of us and Sam, so we’ve got the TV to ourselves. Jo turns the volume right down and puts the tape in and we sit and watch it. It’s not that scary, mostly just gross, and afterwards Jo pretends she’s got a demon in her and me and Charlie have to hunt her behind the sofa. After a while it gets boring to hunt Jo and she says that she thinks we’re a bit old to play pretend games so she decides we’ll play truth or dare instead. I don’t really want to because we’re in the house so all of the dares are going to be rubbish and it’s really late so they’ll have to be quiet ones too or we’ll wake up Sammy or Charlie’s mom and dad. Jo asks Charlie if she’s got a crush and she says no, but it’s a lie, but I know she doesn’t want to tell Jo because I was a jerk when she told me so I don’t say anything about it. Charlie asks Jo if she has a crush, and Jo says she does but that she’s not telling, and I’m starting to get annoyed because the whole thing is becoming very crush-orientated and that’s not very interesting, so I roll onto my back and say I’m bored and Jo giggles loads and I raise an eyebrow and Charlie says “let’s do Ouija board,” because there’s one under the coffee table. She gets it out and the box is all beaten up, and the little plastic thing you use to find the letters has a crack in the end but Charlie says it still works. I asked Cas once if he thought ghosts existed – that was after last time Charlie did Ouija board with me – but he wouldn’t tell me if he did or not, but he did say he didn’t think Ouija boards worked. He said he thought it was cruel to use them to give people false hope of contacting their loved ones, but I don’t think that’s what we’re doing tonight because Jo is explaining what we should do and it basically sounds like she still wants to play truth or dare. We put our fingers on the plastic thing and Jo says “you have to say out loud or it won’t work” and Charlie says “you go first Dean” and I say “I don’t want to ask it anything.” Jo makes that sound she always makes when she’s very annoyed and says “what boy likes Charlie?” and the plastic thing moves around a little in small circles and lands on ‘g’, then wiggles a bit more and goes to ‘i’ and then Charlie says “no names go G-I-”. Jo makes a sad face “maybe no boys like you,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe this just doesn’t work?” I suggest. Jo makes her ‘annoyed sound’ again, and puts her fingers on the board. “Who likes Dean?” she asks mischievously. The plastic moves very determinedly to ‘c’. Then it goes to ‘a’, then ‘s’. Then it stops. “Who’s Cas?” Charlie asks. I shrug. “I don’t know either but you’re blushing Dean!” Jo squeals. I just shake my head as though it’s a mystery to me too. I look over at Sammy, sleeping against the wall. “Will Sammy be sad if I eat his pie?” I ask the board. Y-E-S. We all laugh. I wasn’t going to eat his pie, but I do eat another slice of pizza. Charlie asks it if she’ll get a bike for her birthday which is in a month, because she totalled hers last week when she and Jo went dirt riding in the fields without me. I didn’t know they went and I’m sad to hear they’ve been out having fun, but I suppose me and Charlie are only just friends again now and I had to stay in to look after Sammy whilst my dad was out anyway. “So, who’s Cas?” Jo asks, but her hands are still on the Ouija board. It’s just her and Charlie now, I’m still eating my pizza. It goes to D, and it stays there for so long it looks like it’s not going to move again, then it goes E-S-T-I-N-Y. “Wow! She must be like, your soul-mate or something!” Jo squeals excitedly. “I don’t know, I don’t think you get soul-mates what you’re twelve,” I point out. “But who’s Cas?” Charlie asks. I pretend not to know. Jo is excited, but Charlie is weirded out. I’m _very_ weirded out. Destiny? _Destiny?_

* * *

 

 

_Thursday, April 12, 1984 (Cas has been Earthbound 11 years, Dean is 12)_

 

CASTIEL: Dean and I are in the fields just outside of town in a little flattened out patch of corn where some teenagers probably spent the night making out, playing chess and drinking lemonade and listening to kids in the next field riding their bicycles. Dean is supposed to be in school, but he says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Dean has been stuck on his move for quite some time; I took his Queen two moves ago and now he’s doomed but determined to go on fighting.

He looks up. “Do you think it’s okay for girls to like girls?” he asks me. He’s got to be around twelve, we’re about to hit sexuality crisis point. He squints at me in the sunlight.

“Of course,” I assure him.

“Why ‘of course’?”

“Well, I think it’s okay for people to like whoever they like to like, if they’re boys or girls or both or neither,” the whole idea of anything but my gender-non-discriminate sexuality continues to be infinitely perplexing to me.

“You can’t be both or neither,” Dean says, “can you?”

“You’d be surprised,” I explain. He frowns and taps the heads of three of his pawns. “So, what about you?” I ask him.

“I’m a boy?” he replies questioningly. I chuckle.

“No, do _you_ think its okay?”

“I guess…” he grumbles. Logically, the next question is to ask Dean which he likes, but I don’t. Twelve is a little young, I think, to press that too much on him. He’s volatile at this age and I don’t want to leave him upset. I know the answer, and I also know how infuriating it is when somebody who already knows the answer asks you the question. It’s nearly lead me to slaughter Gabriel on more than one occasion. Aside from that, what’s true in my now might not necessarily be true here; humans are so changeable and fluid. Maybe here he only likes girls or only likes boys. Or maybe, like in my now, it’s both. “What do you like?” he asks suddenly. The question takes me by surprise, but it shouldn’t really, I suppose.

“All of the above,” I reply. He frowns.

“What does that mean?” he challenges. I laugh.

“Girls, boys, those who are both or neither, anyone in between,” I explain. Dean blushes and stares at the chess board.

“Is that allowed?” he asks.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I dunno, seems sort of… greedy,” he says with a shrug.

“Well, no,” I’m about to explain, then I shake my head. “It’s okay to like whoever you want to like,” I reiterate. Dean nods but doesn’t look up from the boards.

“ _Who_ do you like?” he asks, lifting his head suddenly with a mischievous look in his eye.

 _You,_ I think, but don’t say. “I just told you that, didn’t I?”

“No, you told me what. You didn’t say a person.”

“Someone very special,” I reply in a low voice that I try desperately to keep relaxed and even. Dean is dissatisfied with my response.

“When you were my age who did you like?” he asks. I sigh in relief; he doesn’t realise but his question has redirected the conversation into territory I’m far more comfortable in.

“I wasn’t your age. I’ve never been an age. I simply ‘am’,” I tell him. He frowns.

“So… you were never a kid?”

I shake my head. “I was ‘new’ once, I’m one of the angels that you could say is ‘younger’ in some sense. Before I lived in this world permanently, the form I took was one of a human slightly older than yourself, but ever since I decided to stay, I’ve looked like this.” I explain.

“So, you don’t get old?” he asks, sounding a little awed.

“No, I don’t. This isn’t a body like yours is; it’s a manifestation of my soul.” I explain.

“What do you really look like then?” he asks. I shrug. “You don’t _know?_ ”

“Its not a physical plane of existence,” I tell him. He looks confused.

“What?” he asks, his mouth hanging open.

“There’s nothing there to ‘look’ like anything, it’s not how it works,” I tell him.

“So nothing _is?_ ” he puzzles it out.

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Woah, okay,” he says, shaking his head. He grins. “No wonder you’re so unstuck in time,” he says. I chuckle.

“No wonder at all,” I agree.

“When that happens, are there ever two of you?” he asks, tilting his head.

“Sometimes, I suppose,” I agree.

“How come I only ever see one at a time?” he asks, sounding a little disappointed. I clear my throat because I know the idea is a little bit of a ‘kink’ for him, or so he says.

“You will. When you meet me in the future, you’ll see it happen a few times.” More often than I’d like, and less often than you’d like, Dean.

“Is it weird?” he asks.

“Very,” I admit with a nod. He frowns.

“Do you always come and see me when you get unstuck?”

“No, sometimes I end up other places. I have to do things I don’t want to sometimes to get out of horrible situations, but most of the time I go to places I’ve been to before, so it’s not so bad because I at least know the area.”

“Oh,” he looks a little disappointed. His face lights up: a move has been staring me in the face throughout our conversation, and he’s finally seen it. He takes my king. “Checkmate!” he yelps triumphantly.

“Fantastic,” I tell him with a wink. “Again?” I ask, and he nods, so we start to set up the board again.

“How about in the future?” he asks.

“What? Chess?”

“No, who do you like?” he asks. He’s drawn his knees up to his chest so he can rest his chin on them and watch me with his spritely green eyes. I tut at him.

“Someone beautiful, patient and talented,” I explain. He looks a little crest fallen.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he says with a shrug. He’s put out. I raise an eyebrow at him. How peculiar; is he _jealous_?

“What’s wrong?” I ask, but he says nothing. He moves a pawn to Q4. I do the same.

“Nothing,” he says, with a small sniff.

“Am I married?” he asks suddenly.

“What?” I scoff.

“In the future – am I married?” he demands, straightening up and sticking his chin out.

“You’re pushing your luck today,” I grin.

“I might as well, it’s not like you ever tell me anything anyway,” he grunts.

“How did you meet your person?” he asks. We play several moves in the pause; he takes one of my pawns.

“Top secret information.”

He makes a face. “Were you unstuck when you met?” he asks.

“ _I_ was minding my own business.”

“It’s not fair that you know everything about me and I don’t know anything about you,” he pouts.

“You’re right; it’s not. But I can’t tell you,” I insist.

“I tell Jo and Charlie everything, and they tell me everything back,” he explains.

“Everything?”

“Yeah, well. Not about you.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” I needle.

Dean looks defensive. “They wouldn’t believe me. You don’t seem very real even to me when you’re not here,” he admits, and he’s blushing again and staring at the chess board. “Cas, if you’re an angel, are you a person as well?”

I am perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you said before about liking everyone, was that angels, or was it people too? Can angels and people, you know, like each other?”

“Yes,” my answer is quiet and tastes funny in my mouth. “Do you think I’m a person?” I ask him, curiously. He frowns.

“Yeah, I mean… a weird person. But still a person,” he concludes. “You’re different.”

“So are you,” I point out. He pulls tongues at me.

“Sometimes I think that if angels are real, other things from stories could be too,” he offers.

“Oh?”

“Uh-huh, like demons and spirits and stuff,” he shrugs. His eyes widen as though something huge has just occurred to him, “can you die?” he asks reverently. It’s funny that he brings that up, as Gabriel and I spend a lot of our time back in 1999 about the very same issue. Because the other plane is timeless, Gabriel believes there is no death. But there is death here, and I’m tied here, so those laws apply to me. My existence is a Mobius strip; if I die, then I can never have been, but if I never was, then there was no need for me to die.

“I think so,” I reply. He frowns at my answer.

“In the other place, you know, the one where there’s no stuff?” His summary is a little botched but at least he’s getting to grips with the idea. “You’re all just spirits, right?”

“Not exactly,” I hedge, because I can see where this is going.

“Do you think where you’re from is where people go when they’re dead?” he asks. I sigh.

“Dean… it’s not like that,” I groan. He nods, but I can see he’s biting back more. He gets to his feet and rearranges his shorts, then plonks back down opposite me. “It’s a little bit like a dream, I suppose.” I attempt to explain. He nods.

“Sometimes I think you’re a dream,” he says.

“Sometimes I think that about you, too,” I confess with a smile. He grins.

“Really?”

“Yeah. This could all be a dream. What if we only exist in each other’s dreams, and all these times we’ve met have been when one of us was sleeping?” I ask. He looks sold on the idea.

“I don’t feel asleep,” he decides.

“Neither do I,” I agree.

“Is your person unstuck in time?” he asks. I laugh.

“No, thank god.”

“Why ‘thank god’? Wouldn’t it be fun to go somewhere with someone else instead of just on your own?” he asks.

“No, I don’t think it would. It’s dangerous.”

“Oh. Does your person worry about you?”

“Yes,” I tell him softly. “Very much.” I wonder what Dean is doing now, in 1999. Maybe he’s still asleep. Maybe he won’t know I’m gone.

“Do you love them?”

“More than anything,” I whisper, and I lie back on the corn grass. Dean comes and lies beside me, and we look up at the sky together. I hear a muffled sniffling sound, and when I turn to him I’m astonished to find his eyes red and puffy, and tears streaming down his cheeks. I wrap my arms around him, and hold him there. He’s a child, and then again he isn’t. “What’s wrong?” I ask him. He pushes me away and shakes his head. He shoves the chess pieces off the board and into his bag, and gathers the board under his arm.

“I’m going home,” he tells me, and he’s the one who leaves me sitting, watching him go, for the first time since we met.

* * *

 

 

_Wednesday, June 27, 1984 (Dean is 13)_

 

 **DEAN:** I am sat in the park, watching Sammy on the swings with his friends. It’s late afternoon, late June, and soon I’ll need to drag him home to fix us some supper. I know already I’ll spend the evening in the back garden, sitting on Cas’ wall, but it’s not a Cas day. The next one isn’t for twenty two more days. I wait for him a lot now. Whilst I wait I think about mom sometimes. Cas is the only person I can talk to about mom. Dad won’t talk about it, and Sammy’s too small to understand. I don’t have nightmares anymore, about the crash or about Cas dragging me through the window, but whenever I wear shorts I sit and look at it and think about that day a little bit. Cas is confusing. All my life I’ve just gone along with him, taken him in my stride as though it’s no big deal but… it _is_ kind of a big deal. He’s an angel. And he comes to spend afternoons just sitting and hanging out in my backyard or taking me for ice-cream when I skip class. Nobody else has that, or if they do, they’ve kept pretty damn quiet about it. There’s a wind coming, and I close my eyes and let it wash over me for a second, then sit up straight and pay attention because it was in a moment like that when Sammy fell and broke his wrist and I can’t stand to think of that happening again.

Cas says he comes from the future, and when I was little I didn’t see any problem with that, but I think that was just because I didn’t think about what that might mean because I was too young to understand it properly. Does it mean the future is like a place that can be visited? I wonder if Cas could take me there with him. He probably wouldn’t, though. He’d say it was against the rules to do that. I don’t want to think about the future; it scares me. He says we’re friends there. The wind blows again, stronger, and I think about Cas’ wings, and the rush of air they make when he moves them. I’ve only seen them three times, and one of those was an accident when he fell as he appeared in the garden and they sort of ‘popped’ into the world and he moved them and everything smelled like something rich and kind of chocolaty and then they were gone again. I suddenly feel a need to turn and look at the empty seat on the bench beside me, and when I find that Cas isn’t there it hurt my chest. I pull my knees up onto the bench with me and hug them to try and get rid of the hurt, but it’s fixed there. The wind blows harder, and it brings an incredible need for him to be here with me, even as it reminds me of him. The kids in the park and the park itself and the bench and the fields all don’t matter then, and I’m alone in the world and wanting him.

* * *

 

 

_Sunday, September 23, 1984 (Cas has been Earthbound for 10 years, Dean is 13)_

 

CASTIEL:  I am in the Winchester’s garden. It’s very early, just before dawn. This is Dean’s favorite part of the day. He likes to get up and watch the sun rise. I like it because he likes it. Without him, it feels like I’m the only one on Earth, and that makes my stomach curdle, because the only reason I’m here is because of him. There are a pair of shorts folded neatly on the end of the wall, on top of a Pink Floyd t-shirt. This tells me we’re into Dean’s teens by at least a year, because without the prompting of snow the t-shirt indicates that he’s grown uncomfortable with the sight of my bare chest. I’m glad of it though; the early air is chill and leaves goose-bumps on my arms. I knock into a small plastic box with my toe, and open it to find some expertly cut ham sandwiches. I lie on the floor behind the wall, out of the view of the house incase John happens to look out and notice me, or maybe its before the crash and Mary will come into the garden with her coffee. The latter is unlikely, though, because of the t-shirt. My guess for when I am is mid-eighties. I finish the sandwiches and rest the open box on my chest. The sky is smattered pink as my eyes close and I drift to sleep.

When I wake up the sun is higher and Dean is perched on top of the wall with his sketch book in his lap. I don’t speak or move to alert him; he’s frowning determinedly. He’s at the start of a growth spurt; his limbs look a little long and gangly for him. His eyes flit routinely from the paper to my face, and I know immediately that he’s sketching me, and he slams the pad shut and shoves it into his armpit. I smile at him.

“Hey,” he grumbles.

“Hello,” I reply, sitting up. “Thanks for the sandwiches, they were delicious.” I tell him. He just shrugs. I sigh. “What year is it?”

“1984,” he tells me. He’s thirteen, which explains the surliness. It’s a strange and difficult age, though nowhere near as difficult as what we’re going through in my present.

“And I’m guessing… September, right?” this comes from the chill in the air and the bronze tinged edges of the hedge leaves above us. I get to my feet and sit on the wall beside him, but facing the other way.

“23rd,” he confirms. I nod. I yawn.

“Can I ask you to do something for me?” I say. He cocks his head to the side. “Would you get me a coffee?” He frowns as though he’s never heard of the substance.

“Coffee?” he asks, for confirmation. He’s perplexed. This almost amuses me; the thought of the Dean from my present without coffee is impossible. He’s nearly as much of an addict as I am.

“Pretty please,” I add with a smile.

“You’re an ass, Cas,” he grumbles, but I can see a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. He gets to his feet. He’s slowly becoming the Dean I know, not yet as tall as he will be when we finally meet in real time, but he’s getting there. He walks awkwardly, not used to the length of his own legs, and his arms swing from unfamiliarly broadening shoulders. He’s been careful to take his sketchbook with him, which disappoints me a little. He re-emerges a few moments later holding two mugs firmly in front of himself.

“You’re an angel,” I tell him, taking one of the mugs. He kicks me in the shin.

“Shut up, you ass,” he complains, but he’s definitely beginning to grin now. He looks contemplatively into his own mug as I take a sip from mine.

“Damn! That bites back,” I exclaim. Dean looks a little crest fallen. “It’s like rocket fuel,” I say in hopes to brighten him up again.

“Too strong?” he asks. I shake my head.

“No, no. Just very strong indeed. I like it though,” I assure him. He looks a little less depressed, and sniffs his own mug. “You prefer it with cream and sugar,” I tell him impulsively. He turns to me slowly.

“Oh, I do?” he asks. He dips his tongue into the liquid and grimaces. “How do I know you’re not just saying that?”

“How do you know I’m not just saying anything?” I throw back at him. He frowns.

“How will I ever know if I actually like it with cream and sugar, or if I only like it that way because you told me so?” he snaps. I wince.

“Try it with cream and sugar, and you’ll know?” I suggest. He shakes his head.

“But I won’t know if I’m deciding that for myself, will I?” he asks.

“You’ve been begging me for years to tell you about your future and you’re freaking out about how you take your coffee?” I complain.

“It’s different,” Dean insists, indignant.

“How? We’re talking about freewill in both cases, whether things happen because you know they will or if you know they will because they happen, correct?”

“You’re making me into a freak,” he accuses. I shrink back into myself.

“I am?”

“Yeah, you are.” He growls. He puts the mug on the wall, having clearly decided not to drink it. I’m half way through my own drink and already sizing up his. “You talk about my future like it’s already happened and I can’t do anything about it other than sit here and wait.”

“That’s called determinism,” I tell him.

“I don’t give a shit what it’s called,” he groans. Dean swears a lot, but I’m not used to hearing it here. It shocks me. “You make me feel like I’m a victim of my… my destiny or something.”

“If you feel boxed in by that idea, try imagining what it’s like for me. I can’t change anything, everything I do has already been done in one sense or another,” I tell him. His dark expression lightens a little.

“You can’t change anything?”

“Everything you do was always going to be done, no matter how much you think you’re trying to work around it. There are some big, huge, gigantic things that are impossible to avoid. Time isn’t like you think it is, like a river, with a flowing current that you drift along. It feels like that for you, because that’s how you are. Time just is. It’s not linear or back and forth or anything at all. It just is. Forever,” I explain.

“So there’s no such thing as freewill?”

“No. Yes. That’s not really the point. You decide what you do, right?” I offer him. “Are you going to drink that coffee?”

“No,” he says. I pick it up and gulp it down in three.

“Right, so you decided you weren’t going to drink it, and I decided that I would drink it instead. We freely chose those things to happen, right?”

Dean looks confused, unsure of where this is going. “Right.”

“But those things were always going to be that way, even though we chose them to be that way of our own accord, and we had the ability to make a different choice, we didn’t.”

“But what if you go back and tell me to drink it?” he asks, with a frown.

“But I didn’t,” I say.

“But in the future what if you did?”

“You know I won’t because I didn’t tell you to drink it,” I attempt.

“Okay,” he concludes. He gets up off the wall and sits on the barely-hanging seat of the swing.

Before his mother died Dean would have brought God into his argument, and a year ago it would have come up for him to yell about how he can’t exist because his mother is dead. In ten years, he will argue for determinism, and in another ten, he’ll believe that existence is arbitrary, and if there is a God it’s irrelevant because he doesn’t hear us anyway, and that our lives, decisions, and the effects of those decisions are inescapable but irrelevant. After that, I don’t know.

I look at him, and for a moment he’s not himself, perched on the edge of adolescence, he’s Dean, my partner, my lover, my life, and he’s frowning at me and trying to puzzle me out like he always is. I want this to be another day, for this conversation to be somewhere else, something else. For him to move and put his head in his lap and smile up at me, easy as breathing, instead of watching me with a glare that’s too biting for me to carry on looking at his face any longer.

“Dean!” Sam’s small voice drifts out to meet us.

“He’s up,” Dean realises. “I got to make him breakfast.”

I sigh.  Dean is his brother’s father. In some respects, he is his father’s father too. All of a sudden I cannot help myself, and I reach out and touch the side of his neck, just briefly, so I can feel just a few seconds of his pulse. He frowns at me, but let’s my hand stay until I drop it of my own accord. “Cas,” he says softly. “You’re making me different.”

“I know,” I admit, and I smile at him. He smiles back, and goes back to the house. I lie back behind the wall and look at the sky, but I’m only there for a few minutes, and there are only two coffee cups left to prove that either of us were ever there at all.


	3. First Date (Sort Of)

_Thursday, 22 nd September, 1977 (Cas has been Earthbound 11 years, Dean is 6)_

 

 **CASTIEL:** I fall heavily into the corner of the Winchester’s back garden, scuffing my shoulder raw on the ground. I sit up. The swing set is already broken, but it’s not rusty. The grass is over grown, but the hedges don’t quite look as if they’re planning a siege on the house. From these things, I deduce that I’ve not wound up here at some point in the future, at least; that’s always a pain. Once, I came here before Mary and John Winchester had even owned the place. It was embarrassing; I’d been chased off the property with a rake. The previous inhabitants weren’t to blame, of course. Men appearing spontaneously in your back yard was not something you took lightly. I’m just glad I managed to hide my wings before they spotted me.

I hope that hasn’t happened again. I hear the sound of a door slamming inside the house. There’s a low brick wall right in front of the hedge; in a few years the branches would completely swallow it. I fling myself behind it as quickly as I can manage, and it’s a good job too because a second later, I hear the latches on the door screen being opened. I press myself low to the ground. I can just see a pair of light-up sneakers approaching me. I panic a little – what if this is not Dean, but some other child whose home this is now? I hear an exasperated huff, and even though it’s more high-pitched than I’m used to, I can recognise Dean’s sighs anywhere. He has not raced to the foot of the garden to check for me, holding a pair of his father’s shorts to his chest, so I know I’m here before Dean knows I exist. I smile to myself.

The swing creaks, it’s tied-up strings staining under Dean’s weight. He’s still facing away. I take a breath and chance it, peering over the wall at him. He’s very young.

“Dean?” a voice calls; Mary’s. I know it because I’ve listen to her sing lullaby’s to baby Dean to lull him to sleep in his cot, heard him screech his name both in anger and fear. It makes me smile to hear it now, so at ease. I feel as though it is my duty to remember moments where she sounds like this, on Dean’s behalf. He was so small when most of them happen that his mind struggles to recall them.

“I’m in the yard,” he yells back. He must be around six years old. He said I first appeared to him when he’d just started 1st grade. Maybe it’s today. The thought makes me feel oddly anxious.

“Your dad and I are popping to the grocery store. Baby Sammy’s coming for the ride, you want to come too?” Mary asks him.

“Nuh-uh,” Dean shouts back. I won’t tell him about that. He’s forgotten that tiny decision. He’d regret any moment where he chose not to spend time with his mother if he knew about them.

“Okay, we’ll be home in twenty.”

I hear the car pull off the drive.

Dean it utterly absorbed, swinging gently back and forth. He scuffs his little sneakers in the dry mud, making the red lights flash brightly in the soles of his shoes. He’s humming to himself, a tune that I recognise as one that would later become a favourite song of his, of ours. We played it at our wedding, or at least we will do. Just this morning – well, twenty two years from now – he was singing it under his breath in the kitchen, making me coffee like he does every morning that he gets the chance. I’d wound my hands around him. “I’m sticking with you,” I’d promised. Dean that’s here in this moment with me gasps and twists suddenly in the swing seat, snapping me out of my reverie. I almost curse- I’d been humming along with him.

“Who’s there?” he asks, vigilant.

“My name is Castiel,” I answer, hopefully. He doesn’t say anything else. I take a deep breath; I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “I’m an angel.” I explain.

“No you’re not,” he answers immediately. He hasn’t budged from behind the wall, but his gaze has zeroed in on the five inches of my head that’s poking around the side of the wall. I sit up instead. He frowns, the expression like a cartoon version of the one he’d wear as an adult. At this age Dean resembles a duckling; his hair is a soft blond fuzz that sticks out all over his head, and he stands with his feet apart and his chest puffed out like he thinks it makes him look tough.

“If you’re an angel, why are you in my back yard?” Dean quizzes. I almost laugh. “And why don’t you got any wings?” he adds, as an after-thought. I grin.

“I’m sorry I’m in your back yard. I got a little bit lost. I can’t show you my wings right now; I have to keep them hidden away sometimes. I can’t let just anybody see them; they’d get freaked out,” I explain. Dean seems to mull this over.

“Yeah right,” he harrumphs, folding his arms across his chest. “Angels don’t even exist,” he informs me, matter-of-factly.

“Oh yeah? Who told you that?” I ask him.

“Dad,” he explains with a shrug.

“Oh. It’s probably because he’s never seen one before. Some people need to see something before they’ll believe that it’s real, but not everyone gets to see angels.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t live in places that people live, and we don’t get many vacations.” I giggle to myself about that for a moment. Dean doesn’t look impressed.

“Where did you come from? Why are you sitting on the ground?”

“I came from the future. I’m sitting on the ground because I don’t have any clothes and I’m embarrassed about that,” I tell him. For the first time, he looks satisfied by my response.

“So angels can time travel?” he asks, winding the swing’s ropes around his forearms and leaning into them.

“Sort of. It’s a little bit complicated,” I say with a shrug. He sticks out his bottom lip as if to say ‘figures’, and I suppose that it does.

“How do I know you’re really from the future?” he muses.

“I guess that you’ll just have to trust me.” Dean does not look happy with that. He’s not even a decade old and he already has trust issues. Then again, I suppose he’s just started 1st grade and it’s probably the very first thing they teach kids that you shouldn’t talk to strangers. At least I hope it is.

“How about if I ask you a question about the future, and you tell me if it’s true or not?” he suggests.

“But you won’t know until it happens whether or not I was right,” I point out.

“I guess…” he pouts, clearly disappointed. I can hear a faint ringing in my ears; I won’t be here for much longer.

“Hey, Dean, I think I’ll have to go soon,” I tell him.

“But you just got here,” he pleads. I laugh.

“I know, but I’ve got important things to do in the future. In fact, I’m going to see you.” He looks amazed.

“Me? Why?”

“We’re friends when you’re grown up,” I explain. He’s too young to be burdened with me yet.

“I’m friends with an angel?” he asks. His green eyes have grown so wide I’m beginning to worry they might actually fall right out of his head.

“You tell me,” I reply with a shrug. He frowns, then realisation dawns on his face.

“Depends,” he shrugs, “you coming back to see me again? As in, not in the future?” he asks.

“Technically, if it’s after now, it will be in the future. Your future, anyway. But if you mean will I be coming to see you again soon, then the answer is yes. If that’s alright with you, of course.”

“It’s alright with me.”

“Alright then, how does a week on Tuesday sound?” I ask him. I just have time to watch him look disappointed, presumably because he thinks that ‘a week on Tuesday’ is an awfully long time away, and then I’m gone.

* * *

 

 

_Wednesday, 9 th February, 2000 (Dean is 28, Cas has been Earthbound for 11 years)_

 

 **DEAN:** It’s late, maybe half an hour past midnight, and I’m half drifting to sleep when Cas slams me awake and I realise he’s been somewhere else in time. He materialises on the wrong side of the bed, where there’s just a narrow strip of mattress for him to cling on, and fails to do so. He hits the floor with a resounding thud and I yell. We both scare the shit out of each other and then I start laughing and eventually Cas starts laughing too.

“Where’ve you been?” I ask him, fondly, as he gets to his feet.

“To visit you. You were awfully upset that I wasn’t coming back for a whole week and a half,” he tells me with a grin. I cast my thoughts back.

“I just met you,” I conclude. He nods and kisses my forehead.

“You were amazed that you were friends with an angel in the future,” he reminds me, smugly. I cluck my tongue. “You were much easier to impress when you were three feet tall.”

“I was not three foot tall,” I protest, feeling a rush of indignance on behalf of my six-year-old self. “I was the tallest in first grade.”

“You looked like a duckling,” he tells me. I shove him back off the bed.

* * *

 

 

_Tuesday, 4 th October, 1977 (Dean is 6, Cas has been Earthbound for 10 years)_

 

 **DEAN:** After school we go to Walmart and baby Sam gets to sit in the cart but it’s okay because I’m a whole six now and I go to school and I’m not a baby like Sam so I don’t need to sit in the cart. Mom says I can’t get a Hershey bar because she already bought ice cream to have after dinner and we were having did right after we got home so if I had a Hershey bar I wouldn’t eat my dinner and so I say “okay” but really I still want the Hershey bar.

In the car Mom asks “what did you do in school” and I say “I played in the dirt with Charlie” and she laughs and says “you always play in the dirt with Charlie” and I do so I laughed as well. Then baby Sam laughed even though he was a baby and didn’t know anything because babies are dumb even if Mom says I’m not allowed to say it. Then Mom says “I’m going to work right after dinner and Sam’s going to sit with Ellen and Jo next door, do you want to go?” and I say “do we still get to eat ice cream” and she says “of course you do honey” because she always calls me honey. Then she asks me “so do you want to play at Jo’s house or not?” and I say “can I play in the garden at home” because the man from the garden said he would be here again today and then I say “is it Tuesday?” just in case it’s not the day the man said and Mom says “yeah, why?” and I say “can I have a pair of dads shorts” and she says “why?” and I go quiet because I’m thinking of what to say. Baby Sam starts crying because he’s a baby and they cry lots and Mom forgets about the question so I don’t say anything and she tries to sing to Sam but he’s crying too much so she puts on the radio and we sing “can anybody find meeeeeeeeeeeee somebody to love!” and roll the windows down.

When we get home we eat dinner right away like Mom said we would then she looks at the clock and shouts “shit!” and I know that’s a bad word because I told it to Charlie and Charlie said it to her mom and her mom said to her that it was bad so she told her mom I said it to her even though that makes her a snitch and then her mom told my mom I said it so Mom said “shit is a bad word and only grown ups can say it” so I know it’s a bad word. After that she picks Sam up and he cries because we had chicken dippers for dinner and he likes to suck them and he was eating one right when she picked him up and he dropped it. Mom said “sorry baby” and took one of mine but I wasn’t mad. “I’m taking Sammy next door now, you finish your dinner up before your dad gets home!” she tells me even though its ages before Dad gets home because he doesn’t get home until the big hand is on the seven and its not even pointing at the five yet and it takes ages for it to go the whole way once. I know because I watched it one time and it took ages.

I remembered about the ice cream so I ask “can I still have ice cream?” and Mom says “Dean I need to go now, honey, and you haven’t even eaten your peas” and I say “I don’t like peas” and she says “Dean you need to eat some vegetables” and I say “if I eat them can I have ice cream?” and she says “I’m in a rush, I’ll see you in the morning” and then she goes. I don’t eat my peas I put them in the hole in the sink and press the button and it growls at me and I run and take some of my dad’s shorts out of his drawer. I take them outside and put them on the wall where the man was hiding last time I saw him and sit on the swing and I start to play a game of pretend where I’m a spaceman and I have to swing really high or I can’t get to the moon and there will be an explosion even though there’s lots of babies that would die and when the swing is really high in the air I jump because I’m going into space. I don’t land right and I scrape my knees on the ground and they bleed a bit but I don’t cry for Mom because she isn’t there so I lick the blood of my knee and I get back on the swing and play the game again except this time I don’t need to jump to get into space.

Then I think that maybe the man should be here by now but he’s not so maybe he didn’t want shorts so bad after all. Then there is a bang and someone shouts “shit” and that’s a bad word and then I’m scared.

**CASTIEL:** I manifest a few inches above the ground and whack my head against the wall as I tumble those few inches down. The sun is setting spectacularly behind the hedges at the end of the Winchester’s garden, the colours orange and red blurring into one another like the whole sky is a watercolour. There’s a pair of shorts perched on top of the wall, soft tan ones that I don’t recognise, but I grab them and pull them on, getting to my feet. At first glance, the garden looks empty, but then I see Dean half crouched behind the plastic slide near the back door, his green eyes wide and terrified. I guess that he’s around six years old. He doesn’t say anything, so I deduce from his age and lack of familiar babble that this is probably not long after our first meeting. “Hello Dean,” I call to him, on the hopes of coaxing him out of his semi-hiding place.

“Hi.” He doesn’t move.

“Hi, Dean. Thanks for the shorts. I feel a lot less silly now I’ve got some clothes,” I tell him.

“I waited,” Dean informs me, pointing at the swing.

“Thank you, sorry to keep you waiting,” I say.

“Uh-huh,” he says, and he sniffs. Bravely, he steps out a little and comes half a foot closer. I sit on the wall.

“What’s the date?” I ask him.

“Tuesday, October 4, 1977.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you to tell me.”

“How come you don’t know the day?” he asks, frowning.

“Because I only just got here. A few minutes ago it was Monday, March 27, 2000. It was a raining morning and I was making toast,” I explain.

“But you said this was when you’d be back, you knew when it was then.” He’s looking at me expectantly. I pause and think of the best way to begin to explain the complexities of how my kind experience time. My brain has a wonderful capacity to recall things that would have seemed completely irrelevant, but were actually significant, and I remember Dean telling me both fourteen years from now and nine years ago that I’d told him to read ‘Slaughter House 5’ if he wanted to understand, but somehow I feel as though this is something I’ll tell him to do later.

“It’s like this. You know how you love to paint?” I’m winging it here.

“How do you know that?” Dean squints at me. I chuckle at his tiny frown.

“I’m your friend in the future, remember?” I remind him. He softens a little. “Right, so when you start painting, the page is blank, and you add more and more as you go, until the whole sheet is covered.”

“So?” he demands.

“So, that’s what your life is like. You get up in the morning and you brush your teeth and you get dressed and you go to school, right? You don’t suddenly find yourself at school eating lunch and then next minute you’re at home getting dressed, right?”

He giggles. “Right.”

“Well, for people like me it’s different. We don’t start off with a blank sheet of paper and add bits to it until the page is full; its more like we see the full page right away and have to work out which bits go where, and sometimes to do that we move around enough from each splodge of paint to the other, until we understand what the painting is about. Do you see?”

“Kinda…” Dean muses. He’s chewing his lip, a habit he’ll keep for the rest of his life. Seeing it here makes me smile.

“Well, it’s not the greatest analogy in the world.  Basically, I’m not stuck in time the way you are and sometimes I get a bit lost.” I tell him.

“You said you’re an angel,” he tells me shyly. I grin.

“I am, sort of,” I admit.

“Sort of?” he asks.

“Yeah. We’re not like people say we’re like. Most of the time we don’t have bodies,” I shrug.

“But how would you eat pancakes?” Dean asks. I laugh.

“Exactly! But having a body is why I get so unstuck all the time. Bodies are supposed to be like your paintings, but mine isn’t, really, and so I try to live like a normal person so it doesn’t get too confused, but because I’m an angel, my mind is always trying to work out the little bits of the whole picture, even ones I’m not supposed to be in, like this,” I tell him. He looks perplexed.

“So you can go where ever you want?”

“No. There are important bits of paintings, aren’t there? People in the middle, special splashes of colour more important than the rest, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, those are the ones I get drawn to, and it’s not something I can control. That’s why I didn’t know when I was before,” I tell him. He nods. “But in the times I end up in, I can go _where_ I want, because I can fly.” I explain.

“You can?”

“Sure. I’ve got wings, haven’t I?” I prompt him. He cocks his head a little to the side. He peers around me, and shakes his head. I concentrate for a moment on reaching into folds of space and time, and there’s a rustle, like wind blowing the leaves, and Dean gapes.

“Woah,” he says, awe-struck. I grin. “So you’re a real life angel?” he asks.

“I suppose so,” I admit.

“Can I touch them?” he steps forward curiously. I fold the wings back into nothing, and Dean pouts.

“Don’t worry, you can touch them some other time,” I promise him. I feel something, a tingling inside my nose like I’m about to sneeze. “I have to go, Dean.”

“Are you coming back?”

I consult the list, from memory. “I’ll be back on October 16. It’s a Friday. Bring some paper and a pen,” I instruct him. He nods determinedly. “Au revoir, Dean.”

“What’s ‘au revoir’?”

“It means ‘goodbye’ in French.”

“Are you French?” he asks.

“No, I’m not, but it’s a beautiful language. There are lots of wonderful French artists you’ll love when you grow up,” I tell him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Au revoir, Cas,” he says shyly.

“Au revoir,” I reply, and I’m gone.


	4. After the End

_Saturday, October 27, 1984 (Dean is 13, Cas is from 2006)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I gasp awake and I’m already sitting bolt upright in my bed. There was a noise; I swear someone was calling my name. It sounded like Cas. I listen; there’s nothing else, just birds beginning to sing. Mom would have said they were waking up the sun. I frown. What a weird thing to be thinking. It’s cold. I lay back down against my pillow. I think I was dreaming about mom, before I woke up. Cas says he sees her, sometimes. She asked him for change from a twenty at the grocery store one time, he said. I can’t remember what the dream was about, if I was even having it to start with. The noise outside woke me up so I guess I’ll never be able to remember.

What if it _was_ Cas? I get out of bed and go to the window. He’s there, sitting on the wall. I fling the window open. It’s cold; the ground is frosty. He’s facing away from the house. I think he has his head in his hands. “Cas?” I call out to him. He turns; his eyes are wide with shock. This day is not on the list. I think about running to my desk to check, but his eyes hold me there, frozen like the blades of grass in the lawn and the twigs in the bushes. He’s completely naked, and I can see him shaking slightly in the cold. Every breath he makes fogs the air in front of his mouth. We gasp alternately, taking turns to make mist. He shakes his head.

“It’s a dream, Dean,” he tells me, but it isn’t. He smiles sadly and looks back at the hedge.

“Cas?” I call again.

“Go back to bed,” he tells me. I hesitate for a moment, then pull the window shut and traipse back across the room to my bed. I lie in it arrow straight, listening. It’s not a dream, and I know it isn’t. I don’t understand, but something inside me tells me that something very, very bad was about to happen to him. I close my eyes and play his words back to myself in my head. “It’s a dream, it’s a dream.” But it isn’t.

_Monday, February 2, 1987 (Dean is 15, Cas is from 2001)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

When I get home from school, Cas is waiting for me in the corner of my bedroom. I’d left the window open because it faces onto the garden, and it’s cold out. I fixed a little spot for him by it, left him sandwiches, and here he is in his t-shirt and my dad’s shorts and one of my plaid shirts which looks a little too small for him. He’s curled up on the chair like a cat, sleeping. I’ve made it known to both the other members of this household that I don’t like them coming into my room, not that dad would come in here anyway or notice at all that me and Sammy exist, but Sammy’s a nosy bastard and it took a few thumps in the gut to get him to understand that he shouldn’t come in here under any circumstances. I take the chair from beside my desk and use it to lock the door with, and set the tray of food I’ve brought for Cas on the floor near his chair. The chink of crockery disturbs him and he rouses, blinking sleepily at me.

“You could have slept on the bed,” I tell him. He looks rough, and his chin is unshaven which is unusual for him. I’ve always thought that the fact the most faithful expression of his soul is a slightly dishevelled twenty-something spoke volumes about his personality.

“The sleeping was unintentional,” he tells me, unfurling a little further to reveal a book that had been hidden between his thighs and his chest. I gulp and look away from him. It’s my fat volume of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, and I wonder how much of it he managed to get through before he dozed off. Last time I saw him he’d

I sit myself on the rug near to the tray of food – just biscuits and coffee, really. We can’t really afford to spare anything else at the moment – and he slips down off his chair to join me.

“When are you coming from?” I ask as he yawns.

“2001. October.”

“You look dead beat.” I watch him deliberate whether or not he should tell me why, and he decides not to. I sigh. It’s all very futile. “Anything interesting going on?”

“Big things. Exhausting things,” he says, closing his eyes for a few moments as if to emphasise just how exhausting. I nibble on a biscuit. “You eaten already?” he asks. I shake my head. “You look thin.”

“I’m eating.” I tell him gruffly, and shove the rest of the biscuit in my mouth. He can be such a pain in the ass when he wants to be. He takes one of the biscuits himself and bites it in two.

“Did you make these?”

“Yeah, with Sammy on the weekend. Why? Is it gross?”

“No, they’re really good. Sam alright?” he asks. I sigh, but nod.

“He’s a drama queen, but other than that he’s alright,” I grunt. He chuckles. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, you don’t change, the pair of you,” he says fondly, and eats another biscuit.

“So he’s always going to be a whiny little bitch?”

“Dean, that’s not very nice of you.”

“True though,” I mumble.

“You’re good to him. He’ll learn to appreciate that, don’t worry,” he assures me.

“Yeah well, right now he hates my guts,” I confess. Cas raises an eyebrow. “He said I’m trying to take over from dad, and that I’m an asshole.”

“You’re more of a father to him than your dad ever was,” he grumbles, leaning back and closing his eyes again.

“Was?” His eyes snap open.

“Is,” he corrects.

“That’s not what you said.”

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

I cannot believe what it is I’ve just done. Dean is fifteen, astute, and I’m under rigorous scrutiny from him whenever I visit this year. I’m a threat to the heterosexuality he’s maintaining that is his, and more than that I’m a mystery in his life, and he’s questioning my right to be here. It’s because I’m tired. This is the worst point in Dean’s life for me to have shown up in right now. I’m exhausted. There is no room for small slip ups and the one I just made was humungous. I can either say nothing and make him angry with me, or lie, or tell him the truth. The first two options are hugely unappealing. I take a deep breath, trying to figure out if it’s appropriate for me to tell him about his father’s death at fifteen. I long for five minutes back in my present to ask my Dean what I should say to him about this now, but no matter how tightly shut I press my eyes, I can feel that I’m going to stay firmly in 1984.

“I can’t, Dean. You know I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Knowing things ahead of time is bad… it will screw with your life. You’d never be able to make relationships with people.”

“You’re practically said it already. My dad’s dead in 2001, right?” he snaps. I grimace. I can’t help it.

“ _Dean_ ,” I groan.

“What? I’m right, aren’t I?” He’s sulky, pouting.

“It’s not right for me to be telling you this.”

“Yeah. I’m right. So, what was it? He crash the Impala again? Or did he finally drink himself to death?” he spits.

That’s it, I can’t not tell him now. I sit up and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. “He burns down the house,” I tell him quietly.

Dean gasps. “What? When! You need to tell me! What if I can’t get Sammy out?” The fact that he values his brother over himself makes my heart swell.

“You’re both fine, I promise,” I assure him.

“Okay,” he sighs, and gets up off the floor. He lies on the bed with his back to me. I think he’s crying.

 

_Friday, June 5 th, 1987 (Dean is 16, Cas is from 1994)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I’ve been waiting all day for Cas in the fields outside of town, because he put (field) after today’s date on the list, and I assume that’s what he means. The corn is tall and shaking in the breeze, but I know he’ll find me in the little crop circle I’ve made for us to sit in. I got my driver’s license yesterday, and I got dad to agree to stay in for the night so I can take the Impala to Charlie’s party tonight, legally. I’ve got my sketch book open in my lap – it’s a new one that I’m filling with birds. The sun is getting low in the sky, and it’s getting a little bit cold. There are little field mice running back and forth that I keep seeing every now and then, but they’re moving too fast for me to draw them properly.

“Dean?” Cas calls finally.

“Here,” I call back.

“Clothes?” he asks. I pick up the shopping bag and throw it in the direction of his voice. “Ouch. Thanks.” I hear a rustle of plastic, followed by a rustle of grass, and then a few moments later he steps out. He’s wearing a pair of my black jeans and a grey shirt, and he’s looking down at himself, puzzled. “Am I going somewhere?” I shrug.

“I got my driver’s license,” I tell him. He beams.

“That’s great, congratulations!” he says, and sits down opposite me. God, he looks good in that outfit. Not good like _that_ , just. You know. Nice.

“Can you drive?” I ask him.

“I never learned,” he confesses. I scoff.

“Why the hell not? I love driving.”

“I know,” he tells me, smiling softly. His face is serious. “Be careful,” he warns.

“Don’t go all ominous on me,” I complain. He sighs and shakes his head. I know better than to ask more about whatever the hell he’s talking about. “There’s a party at Charlie’s,” I tell him offhandedly. He raises an eyebrow.

“That’s nice, although I’m not sure you’re just stating that as a point of fact,” he says.

“Yeah, alright. I’m going to it. You want to also go to it?”

He sighs and looks right at me, then shakes his head. “That would involve meeting all of your friends,” he points out. I fold my arms across my chest.

“So what? You’re here, I’m here, there’s a party. Who cares if you show up? Last time Charlie had a party, tons of people turned up that we didn’t know, including a load of dumbass jocks who were a right pain in the ass. You’re quiet, and kinda small without your big wings out so, it’ll be fine.” I shrug again. He sighs. He sighs a lot.

“I still look about 25. I’m sure news of that would get around. ‘Dean Winchester brings man to  party’” he complains, stretching out on his back and putting his hands into the green wall of corn behind himself.

“Alright. Here’s the deal; you can sit in the field on your own all night or you can come sit in my car. I have to go to this party. My dad only agreed to sit with Sammy because I got my license; I don’t know when I’ll have this opportunity again.”

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

We park about a block from Charlie’s but I can hear the music anyway. Dean turns to me, grinning, and pats me on the head. I know this party; I knew it from the moment he asked me to go with him. There’s nothing I can do. I take a deep breath and smile at him. “Don’t have too much fun without me,” he says with a grin. I roll my eyes. He slams the door, and I watch him walk off in his too-tight jeans and high tops. Perhaps I should have followed him in. I don’t. I press my eyes shut.

 

 

**❣**

**DEAN**

It takes exactly three seconds from walking into the house for me to know the whole party thing is a mistake. The place is packed with people, about a hundred in Charlie’s parents two-bed house, and everyone is drunk. There are too many guys and lots of girls shrinking into corners wearing short skirts and heels they are wobbling on already.

“Hey handsome,” some girl from my wood chop class leers from the corner of the room.

“Lisa, you’re drunk.”

“Yeah? So what?” she slurs. Her red tube dress thing has slipped down a little and I can see way more of her boob that is really necessary right now. I look pointedly away, and, thankfully, spot Charlie’s bright red hair bobbing towards me.

“Dean! You’re here!” she exclaims. I am normally a no-show. She folds me into her arms. She’s wearing bright green and long multi-coloured earrings and making me feel under dressed. I should have worn the shirt I gave to Cas.

“I’m here,” I agree, pulling out of the hug. “Where’s Jo?” I ask, puzzled. She rolls her eyes.

“My parents are dumbasses but I don’t think they’re that big a pair of dumbasses; I made her go outside,” Charlie explains. Of course, Jo is rolling joints as we approach her. She grins up at us.

“Hey, Dean. So you decided to show your face for once in a hundred years, huh?” she says. She’s stoned. Last time I saw her, we kissed, but Charlie doesn’t know. I’m supposed to be sleeping with Jo’s friend Erica. “Loser face isn’t here yet,” she says, patting the space next to her on the bench. There are drunk people on the trampoline. Just watching them makes me want to puke. Jo puts a joint in my hand.

“I have no money,” I point out.

“Don’t worry about it,” she shrugs, and lights it for me. Under hers and Charlie’s steady gazes, I take a drag and try not to choke – it’s not like I’ve never smoked before or anything, it’s just my throat can’t seem to get used to the stuff.

“Man, she’s _hot,_ ” Charlie whines quietly. She’s referring to a blonde who’s climbing up onto the trampoline. She does, indeed, have a spectacular ass.

“You should talk to her,” Jo suggests, nudging Charlie’s thigh. Charlie rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, because I’m such a chick magnet,” she grumbles. She puts her hand out to take my joint and I hand it over a little too eagerly. Jo raises an eyebrow.

“What about you, Dean? Your eyes are swimming with lust,” she goads. I duck my eyes down.

“You leave him alone,” Charlie sighs, and pats me on the back.

“Now that’s more like it!” Jo exclaims. I raise my head and see exactly what she means. The guy is from the year above us, and has decided that it’s too hot for him to carry on wearing his t-shirt. I’m not supposed to let myself look at him, but I can’t not. I stare. “Earth to Dean?” Jo calls, tugging my hand.

“Huh?” I say dreamily, turning back to them.

“My, my, is Dean Winchester drooling over Malcolm?” Jo gasps. Charlie groans.

“Jo!” she snaps. Jo flashes her a devilish glare.

“I’m not,” I assure her, but she sticks her tongue in her cheek. I look at the ground, cheeks burning.

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

It’s completely dark now. Dean’s been over an hour. I’ve eaten the bag of M&M’s I found in the glove compartment despite the fact I know I shouldn’t have. He had a half drunk bottle of coke in the foot-well of the passenger seat that I drank, too, even though it was warm and flat. I wasn’t particularly hungry or thirsty; there just isn’t a lot to do. I hear the sound of shuffled steps and turn, expecting to see Dean siddling up to the car, but instead there is a slight red-headed girl dressed in lime green with baseball boots that go all the way up to her knees. It’s Charlie Bradbury. I swallow nervously. She waves.

“Hello, Dean’s boyfriend. I’m Charlie,” she introduces herself with a dazzling smile. She smells of marijuana. I sigh.

“I’m afraid you’re barking up the tree Charlie, but hello all the same,” I reply with a smile of my own.

“Oh I’m sure I am,” she says with a wink. “You’re a pretty one, too.” She nods approvingly. “Aren’t you going to come inside and allow yourself to be properly introduced?”

“That’s very kind of you but I’m perfectly happy to wait here, thank you.”

“Well, I’m sure you won’t mind if I join you then,” she replies as though she was expecting to receive that answer. She holds onto the roof for support as she yanks open the driver’s side door, and falls into the seat. She sits awkwardly behind the steering wheel. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for a very long time, you know,” she whispers.

I close my eyes and pray to disappear, or that Dean will come and rescue me. Neither happen. “Oh, and why is that?” I ask her. She smiles as though we are co-conspirators.

“Look, we both know Dean’s about as straight as a bent post, right?” she says. I hesitate, then nod for lack of another suitable response. “So, _boy_ friend. I sort of worked out a while back that there had to be _someone_ he was interested in further than just sex, and I mean for a little while I thought that was Jo but, come on. She’s totally in love with him, though, and it’s a bit sad actually. But he and her and me and them we’re all like, sisters, you know?” she asks, with a shrug. I nod, although I don’t really know what she’s talking about. I wonder whether I should point out that Dean can’t be a ‘sister’ because he’s male, but I suppose that would be missing the point of whatever it is she’s saying. She laughs.

“Well, from the parts I could understand, I’ll agree that your reasoning is fairly sound, but I’m still not Dean’s boyfriend.” In the future I’m actually very fond of Charlie, and I feel a little guilty about misleading her, though this does explain something she said at our wedding, which is amusing. I’m impressed she’ll managed to retain any of this conversation, because she’s so obviously stoned.

“Then why are you sitting in his car?” she asks, perplexed. Then I hear more footsteps, shuffled but more urgent this time. I look up, and see that this time it really is Dean. His eyes are wide, looking from me to Charlie. Charlie waves at him happily. I grimace.

“Dean! This pretty boy with blue eyes says he doesn’t belong to you!” Charlie informs him, sliding out of the car.

“Uh… belong to me?” Dean muses. Charlie nods.

“He’s apparently not at all your boyfriend.” She crosses her arms across her chest and wobbles, undermining what would otherwise have been a demanding posture.

“Why would I have a boyfriend? I’m not gay.” Dean scoffs, glaring at her. He’s level with the Impala’s bonnet now. I want to shrink inside myself.

“Dean,” Charlie says softly, reaching out to him. He shoves her aside and she stumbles so much that she winds up in the road.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he growls at her. She blinks at him sadly from the curb side.

“It wouldn’t matter to me, you know it wouldn’t,” she pleads. Dean gets into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t look at me. “I know what it’s like, you can talk to me about it, please.” He slams the door shut. “You can’t shut out everyone in the whole world, Dean!” she yells as he jams the keys into the ignition.

“Are you sober enough to-”

“Shut the hell up, Cas” he says through gritted teeth.

“His name is _Cas?_ ” Charlie shouts. “How long has this been going on! Who is this guy?”

He doesn’t look at me. His eyes are on the road. Charlie is beginning to get to her feet. Dean speeds away, his foot jamming hard onto the accelerator. “What are you doing!” I gasp. His headlights aren’t on and we’re on the backstreets so every few hundred feet we’re plunged into darkness. “Dean! Stop!”

“You can’t tell me what to do!” he yells.

“Slow down! You’re going to kill us!”

“I’m not!” he shouts back, speeding up even further.

“Dean, what the hell is wrong with you!” I shriek over the roar of the Impala’s engine as Dean pushes it harder and harder. I close my eyes. I hear the engine begin to quiet. When it’s purring only a little more gruffly than usual, I dare to open my eyes. My heart is pounding.

“Its fine,” Dean assures me, utterly unfazed.

“You could have killed us.”

“But I didn’t, because that’s not what happens,” he tells me, calmly. He’s still not looking at me.

“You still might have hit someone else!” I yell at him. He’s eyes flick briefly to mine, his expression worried for the first time.

“I didn’t think of that,” he mumbles, and straightens himself up again.

“Don’t put yourself in danger like that,” I hiss. He scowls.

“Why the hell not? We’re friends in the future, so I don’t die or anything.”

“You might have ended up horribly injured or something like that, though. You can’t just go risking your life like that.”

“I don’t see what the problem is,” he grumbles.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” I plead. He pulls over. He’s fuming, the kind of boiling rage that rarely ever gets to his surface.

“Why? What do you care?” he snaps. The words slap me across the face.

“Because I love you!” I hiss, and he punches me in the face. I can feel blood on my upper lip. His hands are shaking.

“You bastard! How dare you, you fucking fairy bastard!” he hits me again, in the shoulder this time, and less hard that the first. “She thought you were my boyfriend.”

“You brought me to a party! What the hell was she supposed to think?” I snap, holding my nose. What a ridiculous argument to have with ones husband. He hits me again. “Stop hitting me!” I yell at him. There’s a noise like sheets falling to the ground, and we’re surrounded by feathers. My wings are everywhere. Dean’s mouth is hanging open wide. “Sorry.”

“No,” Dean whispers. He reaches a hand out slowly and puts his hand right into the feathers. I gasp and he withdraws his touch right away. “Did I hurt you?” his voice is strained with concern.

“You hurt me when you punched me, so if that counts, then yes. But that didn’t hurt,” I assure him. He looks sad, but puts his hand back, only resting it on top of the feathers this time. I sigh; that’s for the best. Wings are not supposed to be like these, or attached to me the way I am, and the sensitivity is far, far too high because of that. I can ver easily get carried away, when the wings are involved. A lot of the time it’s best just to… not. It’s not necessary. I take a deep breath.

“Don’t,” he says sadly, as though he knew I was about to fold them back into nothing.

“Why?”

“I… like them,” he admits, smoothing his hand back and forth. I gasp, and concentrate hard, and Dean’s hand falls against the dashboard. My wings have vanished. He raises an eyebrow.

“That’s quite enough of that,” I tell him with a small smile.

“I shouldn’t have hit you.”

“No.”

He sighs. “Did you mean it?”

I’m unsure of how to proceed. I look out of the windshield. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he says. He turns the car back on, and we’re driving along at a far more sane speed.

“Okay?” I ask curiously. He smiles. I can’t tell in the washed-out orange or the streetlamps, but I think he’s blushing.

“Yeah, okay,” he repeats.

 

_Sunday, September 27, 1987 (Cas is from 1995, Dean is 16)_

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

I materialise in the Winchester’s back garden. Dean is sitting on the wall with his back to me. The sky looks as if it is made of steel; it is matte and grey above us. I guess he’s in his late teens from the lankiness of him and the clothes he’s wearing, and also that something is wrong. I grab the shorts from the space beside him and shimmy into them, before swinging a leg over the wall. When I see his profile I gasp because one of his eyes is bruised so badly that it’s almost swollen shut. He looks around at me; his lip is split and he winces when he moves in ways that suggest he’s probably hurt in places I can’t see, too. He’s balancing a mug of coffee on each of his knees, and hands one to me silently.

“Would you hurt someone for me?” he asks quietly. My heart swells in my chest. I sip my coffee. At last, he meets my eye. He’s not kidding. I gulp.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I should kill him, but everything hurts,” he growls. He swigs a mouthful from his mug and slams it so hard onto the wall that it’s a wonder it doesn’t break.

“Dean, that sounds a little drastic. What’s happened? Who hurt you?”

Dean shakes his head and looks at the ground. I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. I reach out slowly to put my hand on his knee. He flinches, but not enough that he’s advertising for me to move my hand. I sigh and take it away anyway. “I don’t want to talk about it. Can’t you assume that if I’m asking you to do this, the guy deserves it and you should just go right ahead?” he muses. I wrack my brains. This feels significant, Dean, so why haven’t you brought this up? I eye the Dean from this present suspiciously.

“You get into a fight at school?”

“You think someone from school could mess me up this bad?” he scoffs, and shakes his head. He sighs. “No, the guy who did this isn’t the same as the one I need to kill, but they’re related,” he explains.

“Oh, okay.” I wait for him to continue.

“He’s a jerk.”

“I was assuming he wasn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows,” I joke. Dean glowers at me. He looks unusually threatening with his purple eye.

“He’s some jock, alright?” Dean groans.

“And what exactly has put him on your hit list?”

Dean takes a deep breath. I watch the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes. “So I went to a party, and he was there. He… I’ve known him for a while. Seen him, more like,” he pauses, glancing at me. “And I’d had a few drinks so I was feeling cocky, I suppose. I went over and spoke to him… I don’t, normally. Because. I don’t know.” He shakes his head. He’s looking at me with a strange expression on his face, as though he’s beginning to puzzle out something about the two of us. “Any way, we got talking, and he tells me we should go up to one of the bedrooms in the house, and so I… I followed him up there. I… I wanted to. We sat on some guys bed and we were talking and then all of a sudden he says… it doesn’t matter what he said. Then he kissed me, and it was getting kind of… intimate, and I freaked out because I’m a dumbass.” Dean takes a big breath.

I raise an eyebrow at him. “That’s hardly enough for you to want me to pulverise the kid,” I point out. He glares at me.

“I haven’t finished,” he snaps.

I raise my hands in surrender, “sorry; continue.”

“Right, so. He was nice about it, said he understood. But he wanted to see me again. So we organised to meet and. God I’m an idiot.” He sniffs hard. “Yeah, and so he took me out and we went to some diner, and he was so… he was so nice. I don’t. God. I’m an idiot.” He covers his face with his hands. “He said his parents were away for the weekend and he invited me back to his place for a drink.” He stops talking, and assesses my features carefully for a few moments. I wait patiently for him to go on talking. “Don’t be mad,” he pleads.

“Mad at you?” I ask him. He hesitates, then nods. His hand is resting on the wall between us. I grab his fingers and squeeze them. “Never,” I promise.

“So we went back to his place. And we were kissing and I said I still didn’t want to, you know, and he just. He just,” he laughs, shuddering. “He didn’t care.”

I could kill a man, I think, fairly easily. “What did he do?” I growl.

“Don’t make me say it,” he whispers. I clutch his hand tighter. “After. I… left, obviously. I don’t know how I drove home… I just. I got home. And the next day at school I went around the back because that’s where I’d parked and they were waiting for me.” He gets to his feet and I can’t reach his hand anymore. He has his back to me. He takes a few pained, awkward steps forward, and then lifts his t-shirt over his head. I grimace at the sound of him gasp in pain through gritted teeth as he does so. The bronze skin of his back is patterned blotchy purple and blue, a red graze over one of his hips that’s about the size of my hand. He has a tattoo there, in the future. It must be covering scars.

“Dean…”

He turns around slowly, hesitantly, until he’s completely facing me. He’s looking at the ground. From this angle it’s clear the graze is from a football cleat kicking him in the side. There are ghostly grey letters on his chest amidst his bruises, from a marker pen. ‘Faggot’. I clench my fists.

“Where?” I spit.

“I’ll drive you,” he answers.

In ten minutes we’re sat in the Impala parked across the street from a large, expensive looking house. Through the living room window I can see a middle aged woman in the kitchen, leaving against the counter with a phone between her shoulder and her ear and the curled wire draped over her chest. She’s smiling and nodding. In the front yard, a kid about Sam’s age is tossing a tennis ball for a scruffy terrier. We watch in silence. My anger is beginning to diffuse, my hands unclench.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I admit. The kid throws the ball again.

“I want to kill him,” Dean says brokenly.

“I know.”

“I need you, Cas.”

“Don’t say that like that,” I growl. He looks devastated. “I’m not an attack dog.”

“I know, I just-”

“No, Dean! Listen to me,” I plead. He meets my gaze. “You’re not some thug who goes around beating the crap out of people. You’re not. And I’m not going to go around beating the crap out of people for you.”

“You could just scare him a little?”

“By doing what?” I snap.

We sit staring out of the windshield scowling for a long time. The sun is setting. The kid gets called in.

“Am I ruined?” he asks, breathlessly. I twist in my seat to face him.

“No.” I promise him. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the steering wheel.

“Do you still love me?” he croaks.

“What?”

“Do you still love me?” he repeats, a little louder. I swallow hard.

“Always.”

“I’m sorry,” he moans. His voice is cracking.

“You don’t need to apologise for anything,” I say firmly. “This is not your fault.”

“I should have waited! I should have waited for you, and not listened to some sleazy jock son of a bitch who just wanted to get screwed who’s even further in the closet than I was and now I’ve ruined everything.” His voice is quiet but intense.

“Look at me,” I command. He twists his head so he can peer up at me through his swollen eye. “This doesn’t change anything about how I feel about you, and this isn’t your fault, at all. Not in the slightest. Like hell you should have waited for me! I’m your future, not your present. Live your life. Someone made a mistake, but it wasn’t you.”

Dean is quiet for a long time. It’s getting dark. “But the first time is supposed to be special.”

I sigh. “It will be.” I assure him.

“But-”

“This doesn’t count if you don’t want it to.”

He frowns. “It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

He nods, and we stare at the house for a while again. The mom has finished on the phone, and seems to be fixing dinner. The engine starts and I smile. We start the drive back to the Winchester’s house. We pull down the side of the house and I move to open the door. “Wait!” he says, panicked. I freeze. “Cas?” he asks, shyly.

“Yeah?”

“Will you do something for me?”

The inside of my mouth is tingling and the tips of my fingers have started to go numb. “I think I’m going,” I warn.

“That’s okay, it won’t take long,” he promises. I nod. He takes a deep breath. “Kiss me?”

I grin. He blushes. I lean across the gear stick and take his face in both my hands. I press my lips lightly against his for just a few seconds. “Au revoir, Dean,” I tell him. He closes his eye.

“Bye, Cas,” he replies. I touch my lips to his forehead – its salty with sweat. I can still taste it as I open my eyes and I’m on the bathroom floor in our present.

 

_Monday, September 28, 1987 (Dean is 16)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

People are staring at the bruises but they hurt too much for me to really care. Charlie sees me and walks beside me in silence to our first period English class. She loops her arm around mine, but doesn’t say anything. When we sit down, there’s this awful muted whispering and it’s like everyone is poking at my ribs. I’ve started to worry that one of them might actually be broken. We’re studying Dickens and it’s boring as hell, and I struggle to keep my attention on the work instead of on the welts all over me. This is almost as bad as being at home, pretending to Sam that nothing’s wrong even though he’s not an idiot and he can see my bruises, but how the hell am I supposed to explain anything to him? He’s only twelve, still just a kid. It’s not fair to explain this to him.

At the end of class, Charlie loops her arm around mine again and leans close. “Are you okay?”

“Mostly,” I reply.

“He told everyone you asked him to suck your dick,” she whispers. I look at the ground.

“Okay.”

“What really happened?”

“Not that.”

“Well, duh, I figured,” she grumbles, the grinds to a halt.

“What?” I ask, but I needn’t have. He’s right there; Jason Fields, all blonde and sculpted and revoltingly cruel. I’m all at once filled with spitting anger and crippling fear. I expect him to confront me, to smile gloatingly, but he doesn’t. He shrinks to the wall, avoiding my gaze. I frown. “Huh, weird,” I note, and we walk past him. My heart is pounding so hard against the inside of my ribcage it’s actually hurting the bruises on the outside of it.

Jo runs up to me as though about to give me a bone crushing hug, then stops a foot away, looking a little confused. “What the hell?” she asks.

“Haven’t you heard?” Charlie says.

“Yeah I’ve heard! You’re my hero!” Jo exclaims, pointing at me.

“What?”

“You trashed Jason Field’s car, right?” she asks. I’m dumbfounded. “Wait – you _didn’t?”_

“No,” I grumble.

“I thought he beat you up because you asked him to suck you off?”

“That’s not what happened,” I hiss. She pouts.

“So someone else smashed all the window on his car in and fucked up the engine? Scared the shit out of him too, apparently,” she ponders. “Well, whoever did it deserves a medal, anyways.” She shrugs. The bells rings. “Shit! I’m late for gym again.” She breezes off.

Charlie and I go to French class, where we sit and work quietly. The whispers have grown to murmurs, and by the time we’re freed to go for lunch, everyone is practically yelling about it. On the way to the canteen, I find myself getting shoved against the wall. It’s Jason. He doesn’t look threatening at all, only slightly panicked.

“Tell your friend to stay away from me, alright?” he begs. His eyes are wide.

“What?” I stutter.

“Please. I won’t touch anyone again, I swear,” he pleads.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I manage to say past the lump in my throat. Jason frowns and let’s go of the clump of my t-shirt he’d been holding on to.

“Don’t mess around, Winchester!” his voice is quiet and possibly terrified. He glances around himself. “Tell Castiel to stay away,” he says, and then pushes me back and disappears into the flow of students headed outside. Charlie hurries towards me.

“What was that about? You okay?” she asks. I’m grinning.

“I’m fine,” I promise her, and we go into the canteen for lunch.

_Wednesday, July 5, 1995 (Dean is 24, Cas is from 1995)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I’m stretched out across the width of our bed, my feet hanging over the edge, reading by the light of Cas’ beside lamp. R2 is purring, nestled against my thigh. Every now and then I reach down to scratch him behind the ear. I hear a soft thud in the en suite, and a moment later feel Cas’ hands skate over my back, and his lips press against the feather tattoo on my hip. He lies beside me, staring up at the ceiling. “Thank you,” I tell him. He kisses my forehead.

“You’re welcome,” he tells me. And we never speak of it again.

 

 


	5. Christmas Eve, Mark One

_Saturday, December 24, 1988 (Cas is from 2001, Dean is 17)_

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

It’s just started snowing again. The light from Dean’s bedroom window is illuminating the flakes as they drift idly towards the ground to join the already thick carpet that’s covering the lawn. My head is resting against Dean’s knee as he twists his fingers through my hair. I wonder how appropriate it is for me to let him do that, but decide it’s not really worth worrying too much about, and just sit and watch the snow. I ought to stop him, really, and I know that, but I can’t bring myself to do it; his touch is a small comfort that just slightly softens the spikes of the feeling in my head.

In central Chicago, Gabriel is sitting me down and explaining to me what I am, what I will become, why I’ve never been happy trying to live in the other plane. He was angry that day. It was only the third time he’d brought me here, to show me around. The Christmas lights around us glittered and I watched in wonder as soft white flakes of snow settled on the ground as we walked. There were people skating on one of those temporary plastic rinks; the screeches of their laughter sounded like peels of bells over the Christmas music that seemed to surround us, pouring out of every shop door and the windows of cars. There was a drunk Santa hobbling down the street, beard askew, clutching a paper bag with the neck of a bottle sticking out of it. I remember being able to smell him from yards away, the smell reminding me of Gabriel the first time we came here.

My memories of the other plane are strange and indistinct and difficult to explain, unconventional as I am. There was nothing to see or hear or smell there, just the constant and incessant battering of other minds against mine, the non-movement of time and thought impossible to describe. I knew but didn’t know that I wouldn’t live there like the others. In my limited understanding, I knew that there were parts of me that weren’t there, like there were parts of Gabriel that weren’t there either. Michael was all there, of course, and went to great pains to show me the absence that was the other ‘abnormality’ amongst us, Lucifer, who I knew but didn’t know. We all grew up together, but didn’t grow at all. We moved but didn’t. I’ve been on this plane too long; I can no longer explain. I’m not sure if I ever was able to, actually. It seems unlikely now.

Today, Gabriel and I will find a rare coffee shop who has decided to stay open late on Christmas eve, and we’ll settle into some tub chairs and Gabriel will pour vodka from a brown paper bag just like Santa’s into his pre-Starbucks disposable coffee cup, and he’ll spout some bullshit about how I shouldn’t think about it too much, because it’s not happening yet, of course, but only it is. It’s inevitable that something will tie me here, and he said he couldn’t say it, couldn’t just tell me. I remember something stirring in me that would grow into anger, but back then I didn’t even know what anger was, let alone how to feel it.

There are soft little snores behind me, and Dean’s fingers have stopped their gentle winding. He normally sleeps silently, but he has a cold at the moment that’s left the end of his nose slightly pink and his cheeks flushed, so even though he’s been inside for hours he still looks as though he just came in. I can only see a vague reflection of him in the window, a ghost of us both hovering over the dark garden, slowly filling with snow. I could turn, I suppose, and look at him for real but I don’t want to risk waking him. He’s picked up a job at the Harvelle place bussing tables, and he shouldn’t have. I know he’ll get through and make it into college but I can’t tell him that, and he’s stressed. I can say that it’ll all be alright, but you can only tell someone that so many times before it begins to sound insincere.

“Merry Christmas,” Dean mumbles, and I twist around to look up at him. He’s smiling sleepily. His green eyes open a crack and the smile slips off as he appraises me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I mutter and I start to turn back but he catches my jaw with his hand. I smile at him indulgently, but pull his hand away. He pouts and I roll my eyes.

“Seriously, Cas, what’s eating you?” he asks, folding his arms across his cheeks. Suddenly – ridiculously – my head feels cold without his hand in my hair. I sigh.

“It’s Christmas Eve – shouldn’t you be with Sam and your father?” I ask. His eyes glint, and I wonder what’s occurred to him from that. In the future Dean explains to me that he read into everything I said, constantly watching me for slip ups that might reveal just a hint of biographical information I might be able to give him.

“Nah,” he tells me with a shrug. “Sammy’s reading in his room and dad’s… well. You know,” Dean shrugs. I do know. Passed out drunk on the couch. This is the last Christmas that he’s alive for, but I can’t tell Dean that. Something from his expression hints to me that he’s already guessed, though I’m not sure how anything I said could have given that away. Maybe his father’s drinking habit has given their future away. “Cas?”

“Mm?”

“You aren’t all with me right now, are you?” he guesses. I laugh at that.

“No – I’m in a coffee shop in Chicago with my friend Gabriel,” I tell Dean.

“I thought he was your brother,” Dean points out. I raise an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

Dean shrugs. “S’what you said last time.”

“Well. Brother is as good a term as any, I suppose.”

“When were you in the coffee shop from?” He’s remembered that I don’t exist here in linear terms yet, and he’s beaming proudly because he’s sure I’ve realised that. I shake my head at him.

“I was very… young I suppose is the most appropriate description. I’d not been here many times before and I…” I look over him. He’s waiting for any snippet of myself I will toss for him, a puppy begging for the crumbs of a sandwich. “Dean… you. You know why I’m here, don’t you?” I find myself saying. He nods earnestly.

“Yeah, you’re not supposed to exist on a linear timeline but in this plane of existence you’re forced to so you zap about, right?” he talks fast, eager to impress me with his retention of this knowledge. I smile fondly.

“That’s all correct, but none of that is _why,”_ I sigh.

“What is, then?” he chirps quietly, actually leaning forward as if in anticipation of a whispered response. I am the keeper of the keys. I hold the secrets of the universe. I wonder if really he should know this now, but he knew it when I met him three years from now, so at some point I’ve told him.

“You remember the day your mother died?” I am prepared for the way the colour drains from Dean’s face at this but that in no way lessens its ability to sicken me. I want to wrap him in my arms, fold him against my chest the way I know he likes me to, but I can’t here. I do, however, take his hand, right pressed against his side and tucked half-away under his folded arms, but just about accessible.

“You pulled me out of the car,” he remembers.

I nod. “Yes.”

Dean processes this information. “What?” he asks finally.

“That’s why.”

“You’re here because you pulled me out of a car?” he mutters.

“Essentially, yes. It’s a little more complex and involves a few thousand more linchpins than you can probably comprehend, but yes. The crux of it is that,” I confirm. He unfolds his arms, careful to keep hold of my fingers. I can practically see the cogs whirring behind his eyes.

“Right. Shit,” he muses. I almost laugh.

“Yes, indeed.”

“So… what were you saying about a coffee shop?” he asks, his eyes shining bright. I do laugh then, the sound shaking out of me. “Before you told me I’m basically the reason you exist,” he says testily.

“Dean,” I chastise. I don’t correct him though, because there is nothing to correct. He grins, but I take my hand from him and sit up away from his shin. I cover by repositioning myself against the slowly cooling radiator, but there’s hurt in Dean’s eyes as well as triumph. I smile softly and hope he understands; almost, Dean, almost. But not quite.

“Coffee shop,” he says, patting the side of the chair in emphasis. “Spill.”

I roll my eyes. “It isn’t all that exciting,” I warn him.

He groans. “Cas.” He elongates the word, half moans it in a way that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up a little. A sound like someone dropping sheets of paper to the floor, and a bang, a spasm of unworldly pain through a part of me that should not be there. I hiss through my teeth. Dean is pressed against the back of his chair now, his eyes wide with awe.

“Sorry,” I begin, half tucking them down my sides. I put my hand out and feel the feathers, warm and almost wet feeling to the touch, but only half existent. The sensation is bizarrely moreish, even to me, and I can’t help but keep a fistful of them clutched tight.

“Jesus,” Dean whispers reverently.

“I don’t think he was supposed to have wings,” I remind him.

“Sh’up” he breathes, getting to his feet. The wings are huge, each one at least one and a half times the length of my body, feathers black at the first glance, but iridescent in the light. I move them, alien on my back, and they glisten peacock-colours. Dean gasps, and a hand – hot, brand hot – gently runs along the impossible joint above my head. I gasp. “That wasn’t pain,” he says. It’s not a question but I shake my head anyway. “They feel like… like clouds,” he mumbles.

“Clouds are water particles,” I point out and he makes a ‘tsk’ sound in his throat. I chuckle, and it relaxes me. It’s easier to allow him to touch me like this when I am relaxed. Ought I let him do this now? Seventeen. Well, I suppose there’s nothing inherently sexual about this. He doesn’t know, at this point, that he’s done the equivalent of winding his fingers into my hair as he pulls me in for a passionate kiss. As his fingers press a little less lightly, I tremble.

“Huh?” his fingers pause. I’m staring at them, and he notices. He meets my eye and I realise my jaw has gone a little slack. His eyes flicker with understanding and he drops his hand. “Oh!” he realises.

“Oh,” I agree. He gulps; I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. I start to fold my wings back into nothing but his hand thrusts right back into the feathers again and I gasp. “Dean!” I protest.

“Sorry!” he says quickly and withdraws his hand. I fold them away, still panting. I wonder for a moment if I’m about to come unstuck but then everything settles again, and Dean is kneeling in front of me.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” I’m saying as I lean back against the radiator. I untangle by crossed legs and stretch them across the carpet of Dean’s room. Its surprisingly tidy, though I know that it isn’t usually unless he’s expecting me; perks of having a list that gave him plenty of warning. I feel an uncertain touch against my side, and then a familiar weight on my chest. I loop my arms around him automatically, and leave them there because, what the hell. It’s Christmas, after all, so fuck it.

“Cas?” he asks quietly. I hum in response. “What happened in the coffee shop?” he presses.

“Damn. I thought your guilt for assaulting me would have quashed your curiosity for at least a few minutes. Next time I won’t bother,” I tease. He lifts his head with a questioning look until he’s sure that I’m kidding.

“You going to tell me what happened or not?” he grumbles, dropping his head back to my chest. I smooth one of my hands up and down his back. I have memorised the details of that day perfectly from several angles. I’ve watched that crash many times. I remember the first time, seeing it happen, the ball of black that appeared beside the car just moments before the collision that I wouldn’t realised until much later was actually me. That was an unsticking and a half, that one. I manifested right then and there. Dean doesn’t remember but when I was actually pulling him out of the vehicle I was completely naked. Of course, by the time he hit the snow that me was gone, pounding headfirst into the wall of the bathroom in our present. I turned to watch myself disappear under the flow of the shower, wide eyed. I knew that I’d look at myself and know immediately what I when I was going, because, of course, not five minutes before I’d done just that.

Another me was there, cuddling him to my chest not unlike the way I’m doing now. But I was also on the bridge in the distance, in the backseat of one of the cars (that was a much longer unsticking than I’d have liked and involved a lot of unpleasant attempts at explaining why I’d appeared nude from thin air on the lap of somebody’s grandma). The first time I watched it I was off the side of the road and I had the perfect view. I was already standing there, watching. There are six of me on that spot in total, all of us watching in silence but one, the first, and he screams. I’ve only been back there four times since so I have the pleasure of experiencing the sounds of my horrified screams as the car hits.

“Cas?” Dean asks, and he touches my cheek. I’m crying, unsurprisingly.

“I’m alright. I shouldn’t be bringing you this sadness. It’s Christmas eve,” I say and attempt to smile. He shakes his head.

“No, I’m glad you’re here,” he insists. I sob brokenly and he shifts uncomfortable.

“In the coffee shop Gabriel was telling me that I would end up tied to this plane, that it would hold me here. I half knew it already, of course, but hearing the reality of it was different. Especially because I heard it here, in this plane. Everything here is so… vivid,” I explain, shaking my head.

“Do you wish you hadn’t pulled me out of the car?”

“ _What?_ ” I gasp.

“Do you wish you hadn’t pulled me out of the car, you know, so you would be stuck here?” he asks, looking at the floor. He fiddles with the cuff of his plaid shirt.

“Dean,” I sigh. He shrugs. “ _Dean,”_ I say more firmly, and he meets my gaze. “I would never wish that,” I promise him. He nods minutely. “You hear me? Dean?”

“I hear you,” he mumbles.

“Come here,” I tell him softly, and open my arms. He hesitates, taking in what I’m offering, but then falls softly against my chest. He’s all fabric softener and unwashed boy. It’s not exactly appealing but it is half-familiar, at least. I clutch him back. “You and I… we. We have a profound bond,” I tell him. He snorts. “What?”

“’Profound bond’ my ass,” he says into my shoulder. I smile, then before I know it Dean has pulled out of my embrace only to press his lips against mine, gently, cautiously. I kiss him back, just as cautious and there’s a tingle in my nose.

“I think I’m leaving,” I tell him, pulling apart. He nods and gets to his feet, turning his back to me.

“I’ll uh… I’ll wait,” he tells me.

“I know,” I tell him, because I do, and he will, and he has, and he is.


	6. Eat Or Be Eaten

_Saturday, November 30 th, 1991 (Cas has been Earthbound 3 years, Dean is 20)_

**CASTIEL** : Dean’s invitation to dinner is a phantom weight in my chest. I can’t do anything, or work around it. His younger brother, Sammy, and his flatmate Charlie – though Dean described her as being the little sister he never wanted, he was smiling which suggest to me a fondness. The whole thing is entirely sickening and I can’t sit still, but I can’t quite get myself into gear to move either. The reality of my present – of Dean Winchester – is beginning to take hold. Everything in the world looks different, all the different parts of myself start to make a little bit more sense. It’s exhilarating but terrifying, and knowing that a lot of the time it’s stress that makes me come unstuck doesn’t help one bit. What if it happens over dinner? What if I ruin this whole thing? Logically I know I can’t destroy this completely; Dean’s memories are real and solid, and there’s no way I don’t end up going back and making them for him. It’s odd, though, and it feels like everything is riding on this evening, on my outfit, on this bottle of wine in my shaking hand. Noticing that I’m trembling is weirdly comforting; perhaps I’m a little more human than I’d thought, after all.

I press the buzzer, “yeah?” comes a male voice that definitely isn’t Dean’s.

“Oh, it’s Castiel,” I reply nervously.

“Oh! Come on up. Third floor,” the voice says cheerfully. The buzzer emits an obtrusive sound and I push open the door. I jog up the stairs. The person waiting at the top of them is lanky and puppy-like in the way only teenage boys can be, wearing a goofy smile and extending his hand for me to shake in a manner that suggests both amiability and extreme clumsiness. I conclude that this can only be Sam and do my best to smile at him. “Welcome, Library Boy!” he announces as I take his hand gingerly.

“Sam Winchester?” I say questioningly and he grins.

“Dean said a lot about me, huh?” Sam guesses. I smile and dip my head; this is half true, I suppose, but not as true as I guess it usually is. Dean might not have said much about his brother but it was enough that I’d gleaned that he was intelligent, and Dean was very proud of him. Sam leads me into the apartment through a beat-up looking door, and I stay half a beat behind his rangy stride.

The apartment is what I expected; clean but lovingly untidy, a very lived-in space. The small kitchen and dining room that we have walked right into is filled with the rich smell of cookies, and my stomach growls, though nobody hears. “Dean!” Sam calls through an archway, through which I can see a small TV flickering, “there’s a strange man in the kitchen who says he’s here for you,” Sam teases softly. I smile. Dean appears in the opening, filling it, and I meet his eyes for a moment before he’s bustled away by a person who seems for a moment to be made entirely of bright orange hair.

She stops a foot in front of me and squints. “Holy shit!” she gasps, and turns to scowl at Dean over her shoulder. Dean looks a little stricken. “Cas,” she says with a nod, and extends her hand towards me.  “I’m Charlie, but we’ve met before!”

“Um, Cas just met me for the first time yesterday,” Dean reminds her. Charlie frowns and scrutinises me again, probably looking for some hint of recognition in my eyes and finding none. She shrugs.

“Well, you must have been a lot less sober than you looked,” she assesses. In the corner of the room Sam whistles.

“So,” he says loudly, turning to Dean. “What are we eating?”

The look on Dean’s face is charming and concerning. “Cookies?” he suggests unhelpfully. Charlie barks a laugh and Sam covers his face to hide embarrassment.

“For dinner?” I inquire.

“A rare delicacy,” Dean replies with a criminal bat of his eyes that warms me right to the toes and I shudder.

“We normally just order in,” Charlie explains. She’s wearing what appears to be two large pompoms in her ears which had been obscured by her hair until now. She’s still eying me with suspicious, though she’s fallen back to Dean’s side now in a show of weird solidarity.

“Yeah – unless you want dessert for dinner, Dean’s pretty useless in the kitchen,” Sam tells me.

“Hey!” Dean protests. “I can make rice!”

“Oh, what a feast, Dean-o dearest, I’m not sure my stomach could handle such rich and varied cuisine,” Charlie sing songs with a roll of her eyes. “To be fair to him, he’s rather good at fetching take out aren’t you?”

“I can order it to be delivered, too,” Dean says proudly. I chuckle.

“So, none of you can cook?” I conclude, looking back and forth between the three of them. Sam and Dean shake their heads in unison and Charlie laughs. “What do you have in your cupboards?” I ask tentatively. After a few minutes we’ve assembled all their kitchen has to offer – that is, a box of risotto rice, six wrinkly mushrooms, about a pound of butter, half a shrivelled onion, left over chicken strips, and some cheese. I frown at it. “I think I can make something out of this,” I announce after a moment of consideration. Charlie claps her hands.

“It cooks! Dinner is saved!” she says, and unburdens me of the bottle of wine I’ve been holding since I got here. Dean slips forward and winds a hand around my waist in a way that makes me feel very small and owned but not in a way that’s intimidated, and presses a kiss to my neck.

An hour later the four of us are crowded around the small kitchen table eating a very buttery chicken risotto stew, and we’re all drunk as skunks. Dean has his foot looped around my ankle and I grin as we eat.

 

 **DEAN** : The whole time that Cas is making dinner Charlie stalks back and forth around the kitchen, watching his every move as though he might turn on us with the blunt kitchen knife he’s having to use to chop everything because we don’t have anything better. Whenever she thinks Sam isn’t watching, she makes horrible faces at me, but eventually Sam catches her and kicks her in the shin. I smirk. We talk about everyday things, small talk really; Sam talks about school and Charlie talks about college, and I mostly spectate. Cas doesn’t say much either, just nodding and laughing in all the right places. I can tell Sam’s sold on him already, though to be fair to him Sam would probably be happy if I came home with a dirty dish rag as long as it made me happy. He’s good like that.

Eventually, inevitably, the conversation turns to Cas, “so what is it you do, Cas?” Sam asks, curious. Cas looks at me for a moment, a silent question in his eyes. I shake my head, _no, Sam doesn’t know._

“I, uh, I study human history,” Cas says, and only manages to sound half convincing. Sam doesn’t notice but Charlie jumps on the uncertainty immediately and flashes me a look that suggests she’s now assuming he’s an axe murderer or a drug dealer and there’s nothing I can say to legitimately dissuade her of that opinion. I shake my head at her, too.

She seems to soften up a little when Cas has finished cooking and we all sit down to eat the beautiful but weird broth-type thing he’s miraculously managed to pull from almost nothing. “This is _heavenly_ ,” I say to him, and he grins conspiratorially. Charlie raises an eyebrow.

“Oh? What period of history?” Charlie cuts across us pointedly. Cas clears his throat.

“All of it,” Cas announces, and whilst I’m sure he’s being completely honest, even Sam looks a little fazed by his response. Charlie’s eyes have grown wide as dish plates and are twinkling with mischief that makes me groan.

“Oh really? And which university offers this course on ‘all of human history’, might I ask?” she chides, swaying slightly. Cas puts his fork down and clasps his hands together under the table. He thinks for a moment.

“I’m an independent scholar,” he says confidently. Charlie blinks.

“You mean to say that you don’t really study at all?”

“On the contrary,” Cas smiles, that small, private smile that put butterflies in my stomach. I reach and stroke a finger over the knot of his, and he looks at me through his eyelashes momentarily, and I struggle disguise the hitch in my breath. “I think my lack of affiliation is liberating.”

“Ah, vive la resistance?” Charlie says with a dangerous smile. Cas leans forward, something dark in his expression.

“Oui, oui, mademoiselle. Institutionalisation breeds repugnant social conformity,” Cas announces. Charlie laughs.

“It does indeed, monsieur, but in this grossly capitalist society one must acquire funds in order to allow for the pursuit of such knowledge,” Charlie points out.

“Yes, that’s been something of a sore point of late,” Cas admits with a chuckle. I look at him worriedly; I’d never thought of money as an object for someone – well, something – like Cas. There’s got to be some way he’s fixed it for himself, right? Gabriel’s probably watching his back, though Cas didn’t seem so confident of that the other day. Cas smiles at me reassuringly and catches my hand between both of his.

“So, um, shall we have cookies?” Sam asks. God, I love that boy. I get to my feet and go to grab them from the switched off oven, and sway dangerously. Hands steady me, and they don’t belong to Cas.

“You’re drunk,” Charlie says softly. I jerk away from her.

“So are you,” I counter, leaning down and pulling the cookies out on their still-just-about-warm baking tray. The chocolate chips are soft and gooey. Cas eats five.

 **CASTIEL:** There’s something jarring about Charlie. She looks at me as though she knows me from somewhere, and it makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat. Have I done sometime abysmal in her past that’s the reason behind her sideways glances? If it was that bad, she’d have told Dean. She must have. He looks resoundingly calm about the whole thing, although he’s definitely, definitely drunk. “You look very familiar,” she announces as we settle into the fourth bottle of wine of the evening. I look questioningly at Dean, but he’s pointedly looking away.

“Oh?” I ask, opting for coy and clueless as the safest option here.

“Mm, yeah, I think we’ve seen each other around,” she offers, swirling her wine around the glass.

“Well, I’ve lived in Chicago for three years now; maybe we ran into each other,” I suggest. She narrows her eyes.

“Dean and I grew up together, you know,” she says casually.

“Sammy and I moved up last fall, Charlie followed us a few months later,” Dean explains. I nod.

“She just couldn’t bear to be without us,” Sam says with a melodramatic sweep of his hair. Dean laughs fondly, and Charlie smiles.

“You’re not from Michigan, are you?”

“Um, no,” I admit. She nods contemplatively.

“Maybe I’ve seen you in town,” she concludes. Relief tickles the tops of my ears. “Come to think of it, I definitely have,” she adds with a raised eyebrow. “You’re quite the womaniser, from what I’ve heard,” she says, looking at Dean. He looks away, but not at me. I feel a little ill.

“You guys know each other?” Sam ponders.

“No,” Charlie says quickly. “Not at all.”

The conversation moves on, and I discover that punk is an important mutual point of bonding in the household, and resolve to listen to some at the nearest possible date. Dean is excitable as he talks about music he loves, about an Iggy Pop concert he and Charlie saw. Eventually, Sam begins to flag and announces that he’s going to bed. He wobbles on the way and Dean tuts fondly after him. Charlie gives me an edged smile, sort of barbed and threatening, and says she’s going to bed to.

“I need to go to the studio really early tomorrow to sort out some stuff,” Dean tells me as I press my lips to his throat. I sigh into his skin.

“Okay,” I say, and loop my arms around him. He chuckles.

“You were great,” he assures me and plants a gentle kiss in my hair.

“I’m drunk,” I groan. He laughs a little louder this time and I squeeze him.

“Ugh, don’t do that, I’ll puke,” he complains.

“Sorry,” I whisper, and nestle into his soft, well-worn t-shirt. He rubs his hand over my shoulder blades and I feel my eyes half close. There’s a soft, gentle sound, almost like rain, and Dean gasps. I open my eyes and he’s enveloped by iridescent black feathers. I freeze, rigid. He studies my face seriously for a moment, then winds his fingers through the feathers that have burst through the fabric of my shirt, the small, soft ones right at the base. I sigh contentedly, too much wine lulling my senses to have the energy to be as turned on by this as I should be.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me softly.

“No,” I whisper, “it’s nice. This… nobody has ever done this before,” I admit. Dean’s hand pauses and retracts, then reappears on my cheek. I open my eyes and prop myself over him, the concern in his face enough to bring me a hint of sobriety, and I fold the wings back into nothing.

“No,” he tells me firmly. “I’m sorry about Charlie.”

I try to look away but his gaze is captivating. “It… it’s fine.”

“It will be eventually,” he assures me. I touch my forehead to his and he closes his eyes. I press my lips briefly over his, taste the warmth and sweetness of him on my tongue. “Come on,” he sighs. “I need sleep or this hangover will actually kill me.”

* * *

 

_Saturday, December 14, 1991 Tuesday, May 9, 2000 (Cas has been Earthbound 11 years)_

**CASTIEL:** There’s blood on my fists and I’m shaking with anger as I force myself to pull back and not actually murder the man at my feet. He was drunk; I get it. He thought I was jumping him, I suppose. But he’s unconscious and the anger bubbling in my veins isn’t his fault, no matter how much it feels like it right at this second. I’m halfway into his clothes when someone opens the side door of the theatre I’m outside of with a metal crash and I look up to see Charlie standing over me, aghast. I’m relieved to see her, but she doesn’t seem thrilled to see me.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” I call to her, she shakes her head.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she asks, her voice remarkably calm despite her words.

“This good young fellow waltzed up and asked me to beat the lights out of his eyes,” I explain with a shrug. She blinks at me, apparently nonplussed.

“He was buying me drinks,” she explains with mild annoyance. I laugh; Charlie’s as gay as they come and has known since she was about eleven, from what I can remember. “I don’t want to interrupt or anything, but I’d like to point out that I only have ten dollars in cash and you just ended my evening rather abruptly,” she tells me.

“I see,” I reply, hedgy. She cranes her neck.

“Nice job though, Clark Kent. Fucking artistic, actually,” she comments.

“Thank you.”

“You mind if I take good old Nick here to the emergency room or are you planning on taking the rest of his belongings, first?” she asks. I study her for a moment to try and suss out whether she’s actually offering for me to take the rest of his clothes. I decide I don’t care and yanks his jacket off him and fasten the button of his jeans over my hips. She watches me with cool regard, then nudges him with her toe. “You,” she says. “Over there,” she directs me to crouch behind a large metal bin. I hear the door open and clang shut again, and a moment later here it again. There’s another voice, then several sounds of pained protest, then Charlie appears over me, leaning against the wall.

“What’s the date?” I ask her. She scoffs.

“December 14.”

“Year?”

“Uh,” she frowns at me, “1991. Are you high or something, angel boy?” she asks. Damn. In my timeline Dean and I have only just started dating. That explains the frostiness. I look her over carefully, and shrug. “Forgive me for asking, but why were you naked and beating the living shit out of someone down an alleyway?” she asks.

“It’s a long, complicated and uninteresting story,” I tell her. She frowns. “Why are you consorting with frat boys?”

“Oh, he goes to school,” she explains tiredly. “What’s on the agenda for the rest of your night? I’m without a date and if that’s your warm up and I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

I consider that for a moment and glance down at my bare feet. “A little breaking and entering,” I inform her. She nods. “That sound suitable?”

“I suppose,” she allows. She follows me half a step behind, close enough to keep a close, cool eye on me the whole time we’re walking. When we reach an army surplus store I halt and hold my hand up for her to do the same. I’ve broken in here before and I’ve got the method down to an exact science. The process takes about three minutes, at the end of which Charlie whistles, impressed.

“Damn, where’d you learn how to do that?”

“I taught myself,” I say, and smirk at my own joke. I cross over and immediately pick up a pair of think, woollen socks.

“We’ve met before,” she tells me slowly.

“Yes,” I agree, unsure of how this is going to go.

“You looked exactly the same.”

“Funny, that; a lot of people say I’ve got quite the resemblance with myself,” I joke. She shakes her head.

“No. You looked _exactly_ like this.”

“Did you really expect me to have changed much in,” shit when was the date I first went to dinner at Dean’s place, damn it? “Two weeks?”

“It was 1987,” she tells me. Ah. Yes. The car.

“Pardon my mistake,” I tell her quietly. I grab a pair of boots from a shelf and notice that Charlie is fiddling with the cash register. “Don’t bother, they don’t keep anything in it overnight,” I explain. She drops her hands limply to her sides.

“Dean brought you to Jo’s party,” she says. I cringe at the memory and glance at the faint crescent scars in my palms.

“Dragged is more the word.”

“Semantics,” she mutters, with a wave of her hand. “You seemed… I don’t know. Different. More like you are now than… last time I saw you,” she explains.

“Weren’t you just saying I looked the same?”

“Well, yes,” she muses. “It wasn’t your looks, it was your… being. You were sort of calmer, like you are now.” Huh. Calmer. I wonder how I’ve managed to hide my inner turmoil so well.

“How was I the last time?” I ask with a frown. She shrugs.

“Sort of wired. On edge.”

“Ah,” I answer with a nod. As accurate a description of my character as any, especially back then. “And did you ask Dean about this?” Charlie purses her lips. “And what did he say?”

“He _said_ ,” she tells me, dusting off the top of the cash register with her index finger and rolling the residue that comes off into a little furry ball. “You are a celestial being.”

“And how did you feel about that?” I ask. She snorts, then assesses my face. When she sees I’m not finding this funny she juts her chin out a little.

“Mocked,” she informs me. I nod.

“Alright-y,” I allow with a sigh. She nods solemnly.

“At first I laughed in his face.”

“Who wouldn’t?” I add, but she’s not amused.

“But then I remembered about this time when we were kids, and we were playing Ouija board, and you’ll never guess whose name got spelled out.”

“I’ll assume there’s no prize for guessing right,” I cut in. She rolls her eyes.

“So I don’t know what to think,” she shrugs.

“So you’re saying that me being a celestial being is the most plausible explanation for all of this?” she considers my question for a moment.

“No,” she concludes confidently. “Yes,” she says with equal earnest. “Fuck knows,” she mumbles. I chuckle.

“When Dean first met me he was six years old,” I say. She chews her lip, her expression telling me that she’s heard this before. “When I first met him I’d only lived in this plane of existence for just three years, and he was twenty. I’m coming from the year two thousand now,” I explain slowly and carefully. She absorbs this for a moment.

“Sure,” she mutters. She doesn’t believe me, of course not. “If I tell you to stay the fuck away from him, would you?”

“I can’t,” I tell her apologetically. “It’s who we are.” She nods as though she understands, though she doesn’t. But she will. And in time she’ll be the one to save my sorry neck on more than one occasion. There’s a convenient tickle in the back of my nose. “Follow me,” I command. She hesitates but then follows obediently through the door at the back of the shop, across the little storage room and towards the employee WC at the back. She stops a few feet away but I stride right in. I throw up in the sink, loudly.

“Jesus!” she exclaims, stepping father back.

“See you round,” I manage to get out before I’m gone.

I come to in the Newberry Library, behind the armchair that Dean likes to sit in when he reads. I tug on my clothes, which are heaped thankfully just within arm’s length, and get to my feet. Dean peers over the top of his book when I stand up. He assesses me for a moment. “You look peaky,” he comments.

“You can talk,” I reply. He sighs.

“Time for coffee?” he offers helpfully.

“Sounds excellent,” I say, and he folds a bookmark into his book before sliding into his bag. We leave the library hand in hand.

* * *

 

_Sunday, December 15, 1991 (Dean is 20)_

**DEAN:** It’s cold but I drive with the windows wound down and the cold air pinching my skin, singing at the top of my lungs to Joy Division, and relishing the softened, cotton wool flesh feeling that I’m beginning to associate with leaving Cas’ apartment, with spending time with him, with having sex with him. I navigate the Impala slowly, slowly on the ice slicked road, mercifully managing to find a parking space more or less right in front of my building and park in it as quick as I can on the treacherous ice, before anyone has the chance to even think about stealing it from me. I’m on cloud nine, you might say, half dancing up the stairs to the apartment.

My good spirits are dampened somewhat when I open the door and find Charlie sat cross-legged on the coffee table with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. She hasn’t smoked for at least a year. There are a few crinkled stubs on a saucer beside here, and she has wild wide cat eyes that suggest that she hasn’t slept. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly as I cross the room to open the curtains. I thank god quietly that Sammy goes the library on Sunday mornings and has probably managed to avoid having to confront this Charlie on his own. I open the window a crack, icy air finding its way down my sleeves and making me shiver. I sit down on the couch opposite her perch, and she takes a long drag on her cigarette, shaking her head.

“You need to run away from him, Dean,” she tells me quietly. I frown. “Cas is bad news,” she says with quiet desperation. I laugh.

“Right, okay. Not going to happen sorry,” I tell her curtly. She nods as though this was the response she was expecting.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” she admits quietly. This is sobering and makes me almost want to reach out and hug her, but I don’t. She folds strands of her red hair behind her ears.

“It’s alright. He is impossible, after all,” I remind her fondly. She looks at me with incredulity. “Wings or disappearing act?” I ask.

“ _Wings?_ ” she repeats, aghast.

“So – disappearing act,” I deduce.

“He just… vanished,” she says, shuddering. “And he was so fucking nonchalant about the whole thing. He knew me to a t, damn it, and he didn’t give a shit. Where were you last night?”

“With Cas,” I tell her with a smile. “I’m guessing you were too.”

“Yeah, I ran into him beating the shit out of some poor frat boy that had been buying my drinks. Kid was giving him shit for his lack of clothing or something like that, probably, but I mean who _wouldn’t?_ ” Charlie grimaces and realises that she’s smoked through the whole thing now and stubs it out on the saucer.

“Right,” I agree unsympathetically. The door opens and Sam bustles in with a smile that falters as soon as he catches the set up.

“Everything okay?” he asks worriedly. I roll my eyes.

“I’m staging an intervention,” Charlie explains.

“With what are you intervening?” Sam asks, taking off his satchel and dumping it by the door. He’s brought the cold smell of outside in with him, and it helps clear the room of smoke somehow better than the open window.

“Cas,” Charlie tells him. He frowns.

“Why? He seems great,” Sam puzzles.

“Right?” I say with a smile. Charlie groans.

“I like him, he’s fascinating! But he’s bad news, I’m telling you,” Charlie huffs, getting to her feet. Sam’s arrival necessitates the end of this conversation, but I know she’ll bring it up again at some point. She’ll warm round. I know that for a fact. “Come on, Sam, lets go and grab some breakfast,” Charlie sighs, and grabs her coat. Sam looks at me, conflicted, and I shrug.

I sidle down the short hall to the bathroom, where I set the old tub to fil with water as I strip off my clothes, standing in front of the old, ornate mirror that was hung in here when we moved in. There’s a faint purple-ish mark on my shoulder, Cas’ touch pressed into my skin. Seeing it makes me shudder. I’m smiling, my hair a messy scruff of blonde atop my head, and I’m moved so much as to laugh at myself. I twist and find more fingerprints across the back of my pelvis. I run my hand over them, straining my wrist a little to do so, and revel in the heightened sensitivity of the skin there. There’s a hickey on my collar bone, that I spent all morning trying to convince Cas to call an ‘Angel’s Kiss’, because that’s what it is, really. Soon, the hot water has fogged up the mirror too much for me to see and I sigh. I love my little mark of him, of Castiel. As I climb into the tub I catch sight of the white flash of scar on the back of my calf muscle, and remember him pulling me through the window of the impala. My fingers shake as I trace it, but then I just slide myself right the way into the water until I’m completely submerged.

* * *

 

_Saturday, December 22, 1991 (Cas has been Earthbound 3 years, and 8)_

**CASTIEL:** I’m jolted awake by a sudden dip in the mattress beside me and sit up, bolt straight. My heart pounds wildly in my chest, but I’m expecting Dean, smiling and only half awake, returned from some sleepy midnight mission. Instead, it’s myself I’m looking at, pale faced and serious, lying on his back as though he’s travelled right from one bed to another. He regards me coolly and sighs. I curl my thighs to my chest and rest my head on his knees. There’s a frozen moment where he has no wings, then they fill the bed and he sighs with relief.

“Hey,” I say to him. He nods in acknowledgement, stretches his limbs – both feathery and otherwise. I glance at the clock and he does too. It’s almost five in the morning. “When are you from?”

“November 13th, 1996,” he tells me. He blinks, eyes wide and blue, and from somewhere outside of the bedroom, I hear the cat – who Dean insists on calling R2, for reasons beyond me – meowing dolefully. Other me smile. I look at him, try to figure him out. He’s thinner than me, his cheeks a little hollower; the scruff of his hair is longer and messier, but we’re still essentially the same. Always and forever, it would seem. I’m doomed to perpetually to appear in my mid-twenties, which is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, I’ll be forever young, but nobody will ever take what I say quite seriously.

“It’s December 22, 1991,” I tell him, though he hasn’t asked. He frowns, a little crease appearing between his eyebrows. I consciously touch the spot on my own face, and find one that matches.

“Violent Femmes with Dean Winchester tonight at the Aragon, yes?” he asks. I nod. “Well. Good luck,” he grumbles, as much of a warning as I’d ever give myself. I gulp.

“Horrendous or embarrassing?” I ask, doubtful I’ll get a response. He considers for a moment.

“Both,” he tells me eventually. I sigh. “Look, I was about to go to bed, so, let me get some sleep or you’ll pay for it in five years,” he threatens. I chuckle softly but he huffs out a breath. He folds his wings into nothing and curls on his side, only to let them back into existence again, furled at is back, one over his shoulder expertly like a built-in blanket. What an excellent idea. There we have it; another Mobius strip to add to the collection. “God – would you stop being so damn jittery? You’re shaking the whole bed,” he complains.

“Sorry,” I mumble and lie down next to him. I stare at the dark feathers at his back, consider letting my own wings lie like that. It’s probably better, nicer, more comfortable. But I don’t do it, for some reason, I just stare. He’s me, but I’m not him yet. He understands things I can’t, and I’m angry at him for that. I stare for ten minutes and decide I need to shower, so I do.

_Later (Dean is 20, Cas has been Earthbound 3 years, and 8)_

**DEAN** : The evening has been spectacular until about three seconds ago when I emerged from the bathroom. I went to pee. Cas was supposed to go to the bar. When I emerge from the men’s room, however, he’s down the hall, his body arced all lithe and perfect over someone else. For a moment, I don’t know what to do. I’m drenched in his sweat and mine, I can still feel the ghosts of his hands on my shoulders, phantoms of his lips on my neck. His pose is intimate, but tense. He’s like a harp string around this pretty little blonde girl, her face streaked with mascara, her lip peeled back over her teeth like a snarl. I stumble forwards, just a little step, and someone bustles into me. I spin, half-delusional, and accidently wind up on one of the vinyl couches that line the hall next to a passed out Goth girl with a cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth.

This angle is better, incidentally, and I can see now that he’s not kissing her – he’s _yelling_ at her. She looks terrified, but plucky, her little white hands balled into fists. She says something, and he staggers back from her, shaking his head “- I can’t Meg, I fucking can’t. I won’t.”

“Clarence, listen to me!” she whines. The weird nickname catches me attention and I get to my feet, stagger towards them. Cas turns and sees me, the colour draining from his face when he does. Meg looks at me, wide eyed. “Who the fuck is that?” she demands, jabbing a finger in my direction. I’m speechless.

“Come on, Dean,” Cas growls. His t-shirt is soaked with sweat and sticks to his chest, the same with his black skinny jeans. This outfit is startlingly like the one I got him to wear that day I dragged him to Jo’s party, right down to the high top sneakers. “Let’s dance?” he suggests. I nod, and he looks relieved. We head back to the dance floor.

The music is entrancing, and I can feel the rhythm in my chest. We are on the edge of the mosh pit. Cas keeps his hands trained on my hips even as I jump wildly, seeming to twist and match my every movement with unfair grace and beauty. My heart hammers in my chest, and as I pause for breath I rest my ear against his. I’m amazed to discover his own pulse seems only barely raised. A moment later another song starts and Cas pulls back from me, inclining his jaw a little to ask me for a kiss. I more than oblige, swiping my tongue over his damp salty lips before doing so. After this Cas leans to my ear and I feel his mouth brush past my neck as he says “I’ll just be a minute.” I barely have chance to nod at him before he’s swallowed by the moving mass of bodies. I think for a second about following him, but then instead I decide to just dance.

“Hey!” someone says, pulling my attention from swinging myself around like a cricket bat. I blink down at the same wildly maned blonde girl that I saw Cas argue with earlier. “I just want you to know that you’re making a terrible mistake,” she yells over the music.

“So people keep telling me,” I yell back.

“Clarence is bad news!” she informs me. I grin in a way that I hope is wicked. “But he’s my bad news, alright?” I shrug.

“Not anymore,” I counter. Her face crumples but I can’t find it in myself to care.

“He kept disappearing then showing up again weeks later. He drinks like a fish and he fucks everything he sees. Don’t say nobody warned you when he throws you to the curb like he does everyone else,” she tells me, and then I blink again, and just catch the back of her hair disappearing back through the throng. Just then, someone catches my wrist and pulls me back, out of the crowd, to the back of the room. The lights are dim here, but when I finally catch a glimpse of my assailant I almost laugh; it’s Cas, of course, but unless he’s managed a wardrobe change in the short minutes he’s been gone, then I’m looking at him from another time. He’s smiling at me fondly and I kiss the grin right off his face so violently I think I might taste blood.

“Well hey!” he gasps, laughing. He steadies me with a hand on my shoulder and I grin. I nuzzle into his arm. “It’s good to see you too,” he says, and plants a gentle kiss to my sweaty forehead.

“I miss you,” I admit in a tiny, broken voice that I’m shocked he manages to make out over the glorious cacophony of music and leering that fills the place and seems to get thrown back and doubled by the aged faux Spanish décor. He smiles and rubes my forearms with his palms.

“You’ve spent the past two weeks almost exclusively in my company!” he reminds me. I smile shyly.

“But you’re still not you,” I huff. He frowns and catches my face before I can drop my gaze to the ground. With a sudden flash of pink tongue, he licks up the side of my face and I giggle, almost dissolving into a pile of mush at his feet.

“Be patient, I’m just a kitten now, I need time,” he tells me, licking up the other side of my face.

“Stop it!” I protest and he laughs. I look at him, and I know in those big blue eyes that he knows me, knows me as everything I am, and it makes me want to cry. It’s so frustrating, being the one who knows, the one with the memories, not waiting to be told. Cas smiles softly like he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and brushes his finger across my lips.

“I’m in there, Dean,” he assures me, grasping my arm with tight fingers. “I’m back in the crowd now, and wondering where you’ve gone. I convince myself you’ve left, horrified by my actions and no longer wishing to keep my company,” he tells me. I smile sadly.

“Come with me,” I plead. He rolls his eyes.

“Always with you and the both of me. Always,” he chastises, but his hands move from my arms to squeeze my backside and I bite my lip. “Enough,” he sighs, and releases me with a kiss. “Go, find the hopeless kitten in the crowd and save him from the storm drain, will you?” he urges me. I smile and turn, but grasp his hand. He yanks it away and slaps my ass as I walk out into the crowd to find him. When I look over my shoulder, he’s gone. I wonder how confused people will be by the pile of clothes abandoned on the floor. In a place like this, probably not that confused at all, actually. Real-time Cas catches my wrist just as I reach the edge of the mosh pit and immediately reels me close for a kiss. I stare into his eyes throughout it, wondering if he can taste himself on me, or if he tastes like another man to himself. They taste the same to me.


	7. Surprise

_Sunday, May 24, 1992 (Dean is 21, Cas has been Earthbound 3 years)_

**DEAN** : It’s a perfect summer evening, and I’m sprawled decadently across Cas’ chaise lounge, reading my well-thumbed copy of ‘Return of the King’ as I have been for several hours. The room is filled with my work, bizarrely; sketch book upon sketch book lying abandoned across Cas’ wooden floors, filling the space with sketches of him at every angle, detailing briefly as I could manage the perfect musculature of his back, the careful join of his wings to his shoulder blades. My tutor at college thinks I have a gift for imagining the way these feathered appendages would move and work and feel, but in truth, I’m just very, _very_ familiar with them.

Cas himself has been asleep for several hours, one leg tangled in his silk sheets, sprawled out and reaching for the pillows over his head like a Greek god reaching into the clouds. His wings were out, sprawled under his torso, utterly and completely spent. That’s why I’ve been drawing, that’s why I can’t bear to fold the sketches of him away. I know he’s just through there, my Adonis, my David, a living sculpture warm and screaming my name under my hands. It was a spectacular morning, christening the day on those decadent gold silk sheets like desperate horny teenagers, trying to know each other in the most depraved ways we could think. Well, that I can think of right now, when there’s just one of him here…

I try not to let my thoughts wander down that path again, because as they tap into my perverse desire to fuck my boyfriend back every way from Sunday, those thoughts also remind me of the only discomfort intruding on my otherwise perfect bubble of existence. I can only lie down very precisely, and walking today has been somewhat challenging. It’s safe to say I’m glad that Cas has been unconscious for the indignity of it all.

I feel a sudden gentle warmth on my shoulder, and Cas’ lips in my hair. He’s smiling, I can tell by the shape of his kiss. “My love,” he whispers through the strands. The words tickle my scalp. I reach one hand back to touch his neck and he chuckles. “I have run you a bath,” he tells me.

“You’re an _angel_ ,” I groan. He winds his arms around my neck and I shuffle up the chaise lounge a little so I can crane my neck to look up at him. He’s squinting at my book. “You should read this,” I tell him sternly.

“You’ve said that before,” he reminds me. I grin.

“Dude, these books are the fathers of fantasy genre, man. Give them a chance,” I say. I rest the book on my chest so I can wind both of my hands into his hair. He beams, radiant, and I bask in it. He’s my sun. He kisses my forehead.

“Bath for you,” he reminds me, and retracts his arms. I drop mine to, and get up. He’s peering curiously at my sketch books, crazy sapphire eyes darting from page to page, a small smile on his lips that I’d say was smug if I didn’t know better. I sigh, and he looks at me, eyes swimming. He’s so strange here, in my now; so different. Falling for me, instead of me falling for him. Its better, and worse. It’s as exhilarating without the thrill of the fear of rejection, but frightening because he doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand the things I’ve told him. Not often, but sometimes there are moments where I find myself wanting him to know something so deeply and desperately that it hurts, but I just can’t bring myself to tell him. My parents, he knows, are both dead, but he doesn’t yet know how, or why. He’s seen the crash before – of that much I’m certain. I just don’t know if he gets that he watches himself pull someone out of one of those cars, and that someone just happens to be me.

He smiles, trails his hand over the feather tattoo on my hip as I pass him, and I go to the bathroom. It smells amazing in there, of chocolate and spice. The huge and beautiful claw-foot tub is brimming with bubbles, and the water is hot, but not too hot. I climb in, sighing as the hot liquid touches my skin, and sink until I’m right up to my jaw. There are a few painful moments involved, but whatever Cas has put in the water begins to kick in after just a few seconds, and the pain begins to ebb, ebb away. After a little while, I feel Cas nip my ear.

“Hey,” I greet him.

“Coffee?” he offers. I open one eye.

“You’re kidding, right?” I mumble in disbelief.

“Would I do that to you?” he asks in mock horror. I splash him in the face and he wrinkles his nose adorably. “Okay, so maybe I would. But I haven’t,” he says, then there’s a mug at my lips and he pours just a little coffee into my mouth as proof before withdrawing the cup. I sigh. There’s a clack of crockery on tiles, and Cas moves, his hand wandering down my chest under the water line until he’s at my waist. I sit up, suddenly irritable, and hunch my shoulders around myself. Cas frowns, but retracts his hand. I smile at him encouragingly, but he still seems worried. “I’ll go make dinner,” he announces softly, and he’s gone.

I don’t rush the bath; I linger in it until my digits turn to prunes and the water cools to tepid, and Cas calls from the kitchen that dinner is done. I towel myself off slowly, and ruffle my hair in the mirror before folding myself into his charcoal robe. When I finally emerge from the bathroom, Cas is perched on the edge of the bed. There are two bowls of delicious smelling risotto on a tray on the bed, and he regards me hopefully. I smile, take up my bowl, and sit on the fluffy rug at his feet. He ponders this for a moment before starting to eat his own. I’m about halfway through when I finally speak. “Cas, do other people have sex as much as we do?” I ask him.

Cas practically chokes on his mouthful of rice and mushroom, his cheeks going pink and his eyes glassy. I wait, because he’ll recover. He swallows with great effort and studies me for a moment.

“Um, I’d say probably not, no,” he allows. He eats a few more forkfuls and then freezes, fork halfway to his mouth, and looks right into my eyes. “Is it too much?” he asks, horrified. I am half a heartbeat too slow in my response and he’s already put his bowl down and slid onto the rug next to me with his face in his hands.

“Oh- no, Cas!” I say uselessly. I put a hand on his head but he jerks away from me.

“Why didn’t you _say_ something?” he whispers through his fingers.

“Um, that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?” I point out. He considers this and drops one hand. “Its just – there are getting to be a few too many days where I can’t sit down, Cas,” I tell him with a chuckle. Cas groans and puts the other hand back in place. He rolls onto his back and kicks his legs out from under himself. I poke him in the pectoral muscle.

“No – oh Cas, it’s really _good_ sex, but. I can’t maintain this kind of volume of it, alright?” I assure him. I sit back and continue to eat my food in attempt to produce some kind of similitude of normality. “I’m only human,” I remind him. He laughs one, doleful note and lets his hands fall to his sides.

“Dean I’m so sorry,” he whines. I chuckle and shake my head. He looks up at me with shining eyes. “I just… you need to just tell me no. I will listen, I swear to you, but I need telling,” he whispers.

“I told you then, didn’t I?” I muse, reaching out to knot a hand through his hair.

“Yes, but. Dean. You need to tell me no, because. Oh shit, I sound ridiculous and pathetic, don’t I?” he barks a laugh and leans up to kiss my wrist.

“Only a tiny little bit,” I promise him. He sighs. “I feel bad,” I admit. He sits up, quick as a flash, my hand that was in his hair now caught between both of his. My heart pounds, my skin prickling in ways that are hugely inappropriate given the context of the current conversation. He’s looking at me with intensity that’s practically trembling, and even though his wings aren’t there, I can feel them, _see_ them, the most obvious and striking reminder that Cas isn’t human, he’s other, he’s powerful, and he’s wired, on edge, confused.

“Do not feel guilty for this, for anything like that. You deserve the world, Dean,” he tells me, voice deep and reverent. He says my name like it’s a holy word but at the same time like its blasphemous, taboo. I have to swallow hard before I can choke out a response.

“I don’t need saving,” I mutter. He keeps hold of my hand with one of his but removes the other in favour of cupping my cheek.

“You deserve to be saved,” he tells me. I roll my eyes.

“Enough with the chick flick moments,” I tell him, snatching my jaw away. I leave my hand in his though, and balance the bowl on my knee so I can continue to eat. Cas seems to have lost interest in his own food.

“Why on earth would anyone flick poultry?” he asks, and I spray rice all over the rug, lost in a fit of impossibly uncontrollable laughter. After a moment, he’s laughing to, and he half unravels from his protective half-curled up ball, and looks up at me through his eyelashes.

“Okay, just so I can gauge it – how much sex do you think is enough sex?” I ask. Cas chews his lips.

“If sleep and sustenance were no object?” he asks. I chuckle and nod. “Basically all the time, with breaks to prevent bedsores. We could drink lots of orange juice,” he explains. I groan, but I’m smiling. Cas seems a little flustered but more relaxed than before. He picks at the rug a little, long fingers worrying at the fabric.

“Oh boy, our vocabularies would be reduced to shouting profanities at one another,” Dean says with mock despair. Cas grins.

“We’d have to change up positions, of course, so our muscles wouldn’t be weirdly accustomed to only thrusting in one particular way,” Cas points out. I laugh.

“Although, you know – if it works, it works,” I shrug. Cas’ eyes glitter darkly and despite myself I blush. “Of course, I’d get a break every now and again whilst you came unstuck.”

“Of course,” Cas agrees.

“Although, that doesn’t seem to be happening a lot at the moment,” I muse. He nods.

“Very perceptive,” he says approvingly. The part of me saved up from my youth is excited to hear approval in his tone, and the rest of me laughs at that part. “I think it’s something to do with being so physically connected with you, here and now, that holds me in place,” he ponders, then sighs. “It’s only happened three times since we’ve been dating, actually.”

“Ew, don’t call it dating; it makes us sound like we’re in high school with chastity rings,” I complain. Cas scoffs.

“Chastity rings my ass,” he says without thinking, and sets me off laughing again. He pushes me over, but falls with me, and lies with his shoulder against my chest.

“You didn’t say you’d come unstuck,” I say. He frowns.

“Should I?” he asks. I nod. “Okay. But these past few times have been either depressing or uneventful. I just went from my apartment one week to my apartment the week before one of the times, and the other I was in this cornfield I wind up in now and again… there were some kids on dirt bikes, I could hear them. I wasn’t there long, maybe an hour,” he confesses. “I don’t know when or where it was,” he shrugs. I think I might have an idea, but I don’t tell him that. Over Christmas we went back to Michigan to see Bobby, and introduce him to Cas. It was nice, uneventful as most Winchester Christmases are. We walked through the place where the corn field used to be; it’s a dog park now. We saw a Newfoundland. Cas had momentarily thought it was bear and been very confused. It was mildly amusing. Cas is looking at me as if he’s wondering what I’m thinking, but I just shake my head. It’s thrilling to deny him such privileged knowledge, the ways he’s done to me for years, but I’ll probably tell him at some point later.

“And the depressing one?” I dare to ask. Cas grimaces. “You watched the accident,” I say, and a cold thrill runs down my spine. Cas’ interest is piqued and he finds my hand again.

“How… how did you know?” he whispers.

“You… you said that Gabriel told you about that day being the reason you’re stuck here, right?” I remind him. He looks momentarily pained at the mention of Gabriel’s name, and I feel bad and confused but I don’t press him for more. “There… the Christmas he told you that, you also came to visit me,” I tell him. He nods.

“Yes, I saw it on the list. I… that was a difficult day for me then, and I’m guessing I made it a difficult one for you too. Sorry,” he mumbles. I shake my head.

“No, it was good to see you. I… I’d decided by then that I wanted you at any and all costs, so every time you turned up it felt like a breath of fresh air. Things were hard, you know, with my dad… I was trying to get through high school and hold down a job…” I begin to explain but shake my head. “It was good to see you, but you were upset. You told me about the conversation you’d had with Gabe, and… and about the crash. About watching it and… and stuff,” my voice is barely a whisper now. Cas puts his arms around me. “Why it was me,” I add, barely audible. His grip on my tightens.

“Dean…” he croaks. I turn to bury my face in his chest.

“I can’t,” I say before he can finish.

“Okay,” he allows, the word soft and gentle. He smoothes his hands over my back and holds me tight to him. “You wanted me at any and all costs?” he asks, the note of amusement in his voice shaking but genuine. I smile.

“God damn, I was hell bent on getting you to sleep with me for, oh, two full years before you decided not to show up anymore. Took the whole time to convince you of course, being the right up and proper gentleman you are, Cas,” I tell him. He chuckles.

“I don’t know how I managed it.”

“Me neither, in hindsight, especially now I know that you basically want me as your sex slave. Telling you it was too much felt kind of hypocritical, to be honest, considering how bad I was gagging for it at the end of my adolescence. I do believe I made things rather difficult for you,” I needle proudly. He laughs.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt about that,” he sighs contentedly, squeezing my softly.

“No – really, I was a nightmare,” I assure him with a smirk.

“Oh, do regale me with details of your unsuccessful sexual plights after my future self, if you really feel you must,” he says lightly, rolling up onto his elbow and watching with eager eyes. I roll my bottom lip between my teeth, thinking of a particularly awful tale of Cas-baiting, but the one that springs to mind is _really_ bad, like ‘I don’t want him to know this about me yet’ kind of bad. Unfortunately, as soon as I’ve thought of it, all memory of other occasions has vanished from my mind, along with my ability to change the subject.

“Now listen – I was young and horny and foolish,” I remind him sternly. He raises an eyebrow. “I was sixteen, I think, maybe just turned seventeen, I’m not exactly sure. But anyway – it had been a while since I’d decided I wanted you and. Well. I was a determined little bastard, I suppose. Some days on the list are marked ‘field’, right? And so I waited for the next one of those, and I didn’t bring you any clothes. Not only that, I hid _my_ clothes. And when you showed up, I… oh god. I teased you mercilessly until your wings were there and everything,” I shiver involuntarily. “There was this moment, where you had me sort of pinned to the ground, but then you stopped. You rolled back on your heels and said ‘no’, and then you just got up and walked butt naked into the corn and I sobbed on my own for what felt like about three weeks, also butt naked.” I finish the story with a shake of my head.

“I really need to work on my restraint,” Cas says softly. I chuckle.

“Well, it didn’t happen, so it doesn’t happen,” I say with a wink. He grimaces.

“I could really go for a coffee right now,” he confesses with a huge sigh. I nod.

“Sounds fantastic.”

He nods and pads softly out of the bedroom and across the huge space to the kitchen. I hear the clink and clank of coffee machine paraphernalia; as Cas has no job to commit himself to, it’s a damn good job he’s got this coffee making stuff to occupy his time. It seems like a weird obsession of his, a little secret quirk that had always been hinted at but never exposed until now. That’s what I like most about having him now, why he’s better, in some ways, than the Cas of my childhood; he tells me things. He’s still a puzzle, of course, but then he isn’t even _human_ , so he was always going to be. But he’s real, solid, mine. He has an address and a phone number. We have been out on dinner dates. I’ve had him inside of me most days since we met, and that thrills and delights me, in spite of my earlier mood. He doesn’t act like I’m going to shatter under his touch; he _fucks_ me, and it’s fucking sanctimonious.

As I listen fondly to his pottering in the kitchen, I get to my feet and inspect how much he’s eaten; maybe a forkful. The gold sheets are still thrown, exultant, exposing the sheet. They deepen their shade with our sweat, leaving little shadows of hands and knees and cocks as we go, but now they look fresh, not even really crumpled. I grab the duvet and cast it over the sheet in some attempt to keep the hallowed ground of the bed more secret and sacred, but a small box rolls from underneath it, and drops with a soft thud to the rug. It’s small, a two-inch cube. I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at it.

“Oh,” Cas says. I turn. He’s got a mug in each hand. He shifts uncomfortably. “I… I was doing to save this after what you said before… I just. It didn’t seem like the right…” he fussed weakly. He shakes his head.

“Cas,” I say softly.

“It’s not like we could do it really, or… or anything I just thought. I don’t know what I thought,” he was shaking his head.

“Cas, put the coffee down and get on one knee this instant or I’ll never suck you off again,” I threaten. He meets my gaze, obediently places the coffee on the dresser and comes to kneel in front of me. He looks nervous. “No, just one knee,” I correct. He smiles and adjusts his position. I survey him in his nakedness, the slopes of his body, how he hangs exposed, how his hands shake as he lifts the box from the floor. He rests his chin on my knee and I pet him softly. He kisses the inside of my thigh. “Hey you, none of that,” I chastise, and he chuckles. He opens the box and proffers it to me. I take it from him, speechless for a moment.

There are two rings inside, one a wide band that splits into four, winding back and around itself into the vague suggestion of two impossibly tangled hearts. It’s gorgeous, but it’s the other one I can’t stop staring at. Its thin, a tiny diamond pressed into the gold band, clearly designed for a woman to wear and not a man. I remember this ring glinting on my mother’s finger. I pull it out of the box, and it’s on a thin gold chain. “Cas…” I gasp, clutching it in my hand. His eyes search mine, worried. “Where did you… _how_ did you…?” I say, shaking my head. “I thought… I thought my dad pawned this?” I splutter.

“He did,” Cas tells me softly. “I, uh… I mailed it to myself. I’ve had it for a while, actually,” he tells me. I smile, and clutch it to my chest. “Dean… I. I know this might sound strange, but this is what humans do when they find someone they want to be with forever, yes?” he says, lifting the box again. I blink away the water in my eyes and smile apologetically; I’d forgotten him, what this was. “I… Dean. Would you like to… that is to say I know that we _can’t_ because amongst other technical issues I don’t actually legally exist but…”

I laugh. “Ask me,” I challenge him. He takes a deep breath.

“Will you marry me?” he asks in the tiniest voice I’ve ever heard him use. I smile.

“Yes! Yes. God, yes,” I say and he laughs, kneeling up and kissing me. “You weird, dorky, little guy, yes I will, damn it,” I tell him, and he tackles me onto the bed.

* * *

 

_Sunday, May 31, 1992 (Dean is twenty, Cas has been Earthbound 3 years)_

**DEAN** : The warehouse entry looks remarkably unimpressive from the outside, and as we get out of the car, Cas flashes me a questioning look to which I respond by rolling my eyes. I’m wearing this uncomfortable monkey suit, and already I’ve rolled up the sleeves and let the tie hang loose. Cas is wearing a soft grey plaid shirt buttoned half-way over a green t-shirt. We give the odd impression of having come dressed up as each other. I wonder if Cas is thinking that as he looks over me and smirks. I feel a flash of mischief and pull the neck tie out of my pocket. He frowns.

“Okay, time for one last power trip before the grand unveiling,” I instruct him. He sighs resignedly and allows me to tie the small scarf over his eyes as a make shift blind fold. I step back to admire my handiwork.

“Stop staring,” he accuses, and holds out his hand for me to take. I chuckle. “Looks better in your mouth,” he grumbles quietly, and my hairs stand on end.

“Come on then,” I urge him and lead him forwards. I unlock the little side door. I didn’t want to bring him through the front, past people going to of the parts of the gallery, because I knew I wanted to do it like this. It’s not that I don’t want him to see the sketches, the part of the exhibition that shows my designs, where I’ve worked up to the final result. He’s seen some of them already. I just want him to see it in isolation, or in as much isolation as possible. I guide him to it.

It’s bigger somehow, on the exhibition floor, than it ever looked in the studio. The wings, each one made of thousands of overlapping shards of coloured glass, reach up to the ceiling in towering, glittering splendour. They are bigger than Cas’ real wings, which is saying something, actually, because his wings are _huge_. It’s lit fantastically – my tutor and I spent the evening working it all out precisely so that it would all come together. The glass, all shades of blue and turquoise, catches the light and seems to fill with it, amplifying it’s already immense size. The other part of my sculpture, curled at the bottom and carved out of a pale hunk of drift wood, the cracks filled with white plaster and smoothed to perfection, is small by comparison, life-size. As I see the sculpture-Cas’ hand gripping the edge of the plinth, I clutch real-Cas tighter. I’m suddenly nervous. I turn to him, still blindfolded and waiting patiently even though we’ve been standing here for ages now. I pull the scarf down and kiss the bridge of his nose. He blinks at the sculpture. I chew my lip.

“It’s me,” he says, a little breathlessly.

“Uhuh,” I reply. He looks back at me for a moment, his face a confusing mix of emotions, then he looks back at the sculpture. He cranes his neck to look at the wings, blue eyes darting, drinking in every inch of it.

“Dean…” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to say,” he admits. I shrug.

“Do you like it?” I ask him. He nods, but there’s conflict in his face. He’s studying the body now, him on his knees, arched back, holding the edges of the plinth like he’s struggling under the weight of himself, under the weight of the massive appendages bursting from his back in all their glittering glassy glory. His face, his dead wooden eyes, expression pained and desperate, the hollow carved through his chest that I’m sure people wouldn’t notice if I didn’t point it out on the various sketches, that casts a pool of blue light onto the floor between his knees. The shape of the hole is the outline of an anatomical heart, but it’s lost in the pool of light underneath him, like a tiny oasis, or a splatter of blood.

I look at my Cas, now Cas, and understand that he looks so conflicted because in this sculpture I’ve inadvertently given him a glimpse into his future, and it’s not a pleasant glimpse through a white picket fence into a garden filled with flowers. It’s every bit of the things he wouldn’t tell me as I was growing up, all those massive feelings that I couldn’t have understood, but made this impression of him upon me that I’ve carried my whole life. It’s that moment he sat on that wall and told me to go back to bed when I was thirteen, when he told me he was a dream and I knew, I _knew_ he wasn’t. This Cas, the real Cas, he doesn’t know any of those things. He’s looking at the statue the way I must have looked at him years ago, questions written on his grim face, _what’s in my future that makes you think of me like this_?

I kiss him, but he hardly kisses back. “Are you alright?” I ask him. He nods tensely.

“It’s just a lot to take in,” he tells me. “It’s beautiful,” he assures me, and I smile. He shakes his head. “It’s just… it’s so sad,” he attempts to explain, eyes searching me for understanding. I nod.

“Yeah,” I allow. His hand slips into mine. “I’ll be with you the whole time,” I tell him. He laughs nervously.

“Thanks,” he sighs. He’s beautiful, this Cas, in ways still sculptures just can’t capture. His hair is a creature of its own, always messed up and defying gravity. His eyes flash fast across everything, his gaze fleeting and bright, a blue bird darting from perch to perch. He always stands as though he’s poised to run, always smiles like it’s the first time he’s ever done it, always uncertain, always cautious, but jittery, full of nervous energy that he can barely seem to contain.

He stands shyly to the side - next to naked sketches of himself, incidentally – as people mill about the show. They ask me questions, compliment me. I drink a few glasses too many of the free champagne. A few people go up to Cas, tell him he’s gorgeous, and lucky to have me, and he agrees on the second count and bashfully denies the first. Its stupid, really, because I know for certain that it’s the other way around.

* * *

 

_Wednesday, June 10, 1992 (Dean is 20)_

**DEAN** : I’m sitting alone in the little coffee shop I brought Cas to the day he met me, sipping a hot chocolate because I’m feeling self-indulgent today, and a tiny bit self-pitying because Cas disappeared this morning mid-way through making the bed. It’s been so long, and I’ve got so used to him just being there, which is ridiculous, really, when I’ve spent most of my life only spending fleeting hours with him before he dissipates into nothing. Now, though, it feels wrong and jarring. The little bundle of his boxer on the floor almost made me cry, but it didn’t. I finished making the lavish gold bed, and went out to hunt for my breakfast, because I have no idea how to construct a breakfast burrito and that’s what Cas was supposed to make for us today, and he’d only got the stuff in to make that one specific dish. I can’t shake the sense that he’s running out of money, and that feels bizarre; he’s stopped buying the most expensive wine, and we haven’t been out for a meal in a while.

I should be working on this essay for the grotesques sculpting class I’m taking this summer, but I’m entirely too miserable to concentrate. I considered for a little while going back to the apartment to see Charlie and Sam, then I remembered that Sam’s gone to stay back with Bobby for a couple of weeks, and Charlie’s picked up a job as a secretary in some legal offices downtown, so she probably wouldn’t be there either. There are some things I need from home, more clothes, the little knife I use to carve my wooden marquettes, and I have resolved to go and get them once I’ve finished in here. I’m sat in the window, somewhat masochistically, and I can’t help myself but to glance at the empty chair that I feel Cas should be sitting in.

A familiar blonde mane bobs past across the street, and Meg turns, her eyes wide. I wave at her. She waves back, and crosses over. A moment later the bell tinkles and I can smell gin, and the chair beside me screeches against the floor. She jumps up into it. She’s pretty in a wild animal kind of way, her hair untameable and hanging down to the midpoint of her back. Her eyes are wide and steady, her mouth set in a way that implies mockery despite the fact she’s not even spoken yet. Moreover, she looks a wreck; the clothes she’s wearing look slept in, and her eyes are smudged with the ghost of yesterday’s make up.

“Dean, was it?” she says, as though this fact alone irritates her.

“Uh, yeah. And you’re Meg, right?” I ask. She rolls her eyes, and I assume I’m supposed to take that as a yes.

“Yes but that’s hardly the point,” she sighs and props her elbows on the table. “You’re crazy, is the point,” she informs me.

“So everyone keeps telling me,” I mumble grimly and sip my hot chocolate. She nods; so, so, she says with her eyes.

“You know where dear old Clarence is right now?” she asks, remarkably calm as she plucks the biscotti off my saucer and pops it into her mouth.

“No,” I admit. Her eyes flash as she crunches the small biscuit in her teeth.

“Running down Broadway butt naked, or so I hear,” she explains with a nod.

I look down at the lingering clouds of cream on the top of my coffee and rub away the moustache I imagine has formed on my lip. “Really?” great job, Dean. Stellar performance.

“You seem remarkably unsurprised,” she sighs. She looks at her watch; it catches in the sunlight.

“Uh,” I say uselessly.

“I think I’m more concerned than you are,” she points out, hopping down from her chair. _Yes,_ I think, _but only because you don’t know the whole story._

“Oh?”

“Yeah, definitely more concerned,” she nods, then looks me up and down. “You old enough to drink, lover boy?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her proudly. She rolls her eyes.

“Come on then,” she nods towards the door. I frown; I can’t seriously have been asked for a drink by Cas’ ex. “I see you’re engaged,” she drawls from the end of the table. I glance at the ring on my left index finger. “You celebrated?”

With sex and wine and baths, with a trip to see Bobby and Ellen Harvelle back in Michigan, to tell Jo and Charlie’s parents. With more wine and sex. “I guess,” I conclude.

“Okay, so. We’ll have a little bachelorette party, just the two of us,” she tells me. I squint at her.

“I think that would be a bad idea,” I confess. She groans.

“Come on, live it up a little before you settle down with sir reads a lot.”

I consider her for a moment, her loose purple top and her leather jacket despite the heat. I can see what Cas must have seen, pretty like a wild flower not a rose, but prickle-y. She’s older than me, maybe twenty five if not a little more, but there’s something childish in her round face, wide eyes. She’s stubborn like a child too, waiting by the door, seeming to fully expect me to follow her, as I’m no doubt many people do. She’s like a rugged vampire with her pale skin, and holds herself like a queen. There’s a pull around her that I can sense but can’t feel because I can see that it’s not an orbit you’d get dragged into but a black hole, and she’s fighting to get out of it herself.

“I love him, you know,” she says, and whilst I’m pretty sure she and Cas only saw each other a handful of times, I believe her. He’s very easy to love, to fall for. He won’t have understood what he was doing, I suppose, how fragile she is, a tiny broken little bird. He’s was a predator, and I still see that in him now sometimes, when he gets into these weird moments of extreme fixation, worrying at the walls for hours. I have a sudden urge to wrap Meg in my arms and tell her everything will be okay, only I’m not sure that it will and that would be a terrible idea.

“I love him,” I reply with a shrug. “He loves me,” I add, and she grimaces.

“I get it,” she says quietly, bitterly. “See you around,” she spits, and yanks open the door. She storms out into the street. I watch her until she disappears round a corner, and she doesn’t look back once.

I finish my hot chocolate slowly, even though it’s got almost cold now. I get in the car slowly too, and drive back the apartment at a snail’s pace. The place is small and uninviting without Sam or Charlie in it. I call Cas’ place but he’s not home. I lie on my bed that I haven’t slept in for weeks, and stare up at the grubby white ceiling. I close my eyes but I don’t sleep.


	8. Get Me To The Church On Time

_Saturday, October 23, 1993 (Cas has been Earthbound 5 years, Dean is 22)_

_6:00_

**CASTIEL:** I wake up to the low rumbling sound of rain clouds yet to burst, and stretch out across the uncomfortable motel bed that I’ve been installed in. There are two beds, both of them doubles, as if whoever organised this wanted to emphasise how alone I am at this point in time. I have a deep, churning, sick sense of nerves. It rolls through me. I reach up and wind a hand into my feathers, grip them tight and pull, more to distract myself than anything. The sensation makes my eyes water and I press them shut. I feel very here, very stuck in the present, and I long with every fibre of my being to remain that way. Just for today, one instance in time, please, can I just stay put?

Everyone else had somewhere to stay, some nook in this town already carved out. Dean and I had originally planned to stay with Charlie’s parents in their spare bedroom, but of course, Charlie and Sam had vetoed that decision. “You can’t spend the night of your wedding together!” Charlie had said, absolutely aghast at the suggestion.

“Come on,” Dean had groaned. “It’s hardly like we’re a conventional couple,” he’d grumbled. I’d grinned at that, and Charlie had rolled her eyes. Sam had looked as though he felt a little ill, whether because he’d been unwillingly tricked into picturing his brother having sex, or because he’d been reminded of me, of my wings he’d accidentally seen when I split coffee down my chest and scalded myself, and in the panic let my wings unfurl. That had been a conversation and a half.

I roll onto my side, so one of my wings is jammed awkwardly above my head and against the wall, then fold them into nothing. I sigh. I wish to bind myself to Dean in every human way possible, to give myself to him in every way I can. I think about linchpins, holding everything together, and wondering if this day will be one of them. In my own chronology, I’ve not pulled Dean out of the car yet. I don’t know when that will be required of me. Somehow that seems more significant than today, now we’re here, now I’m forcing myself to get out of bed. I consider my reflection in the bathroom; twenty-something, befuddled, as always. Please oh please let me pass for normal human today, please oh please let me not get unstuck, let me not unfold impossible appendages at inappropriate moments. Please, oh please, let today belong to Dean.

_7:00_

**DEAN** : I wake up to my bed being shaken, and for a second I can’t work out where I am. “Come on!” squeals a voice, and for half a second I mistake it as Sam’s. What’s going on? Is it Christmas? Did I forget to put his presents under the tree? But when I open my eyes it’s Charlie, folded into the polka dot dressing that was hers throughout adolescence and I haven’t seen her wear for years, and brandishing a huge mug of coffee in her other hand. I blink at her, accepting her offering, and glance at the clock.

“Seven!” I exclaim, and press the coffee back into her hand. I slam my head back into my pillow and roll to turn my back on her. She laughs, unfairly conscious.

“But _Dean_ ,” she protests. “You’re getting married!” she points out. I press my face into the pillow and inhale the smell of fabric cleaner and familiar place. I spent so much time in this house as a child that my memories of it are almost as strong as my memories of my own. I smile to myself. “Dean, are you even listening to me? Did you hear what I just said?” Charlie chastises.

“I’m getting married,” I repeat, and then I realise. Shit. I’m getting married. Today. In seven hours. To Castiel. Fuck. I sit up and take the coffee back and gulp it down although it scalds my throat. Charlie laughs and winks at me.

“That’s more the response I was anticipating,” she tells me. I would laugh but I’d probably hurl. At least it would have been a memorable start to the day, I suppose.

_8:32_

**CASTIEL** : I can’t sit still, so I decide to take a walk to try and fill some time. It will take me less than fifteen minutes to get dressed, twenty minutes to drive over to the Harvelle’s place, and I propose to myself that I will take an extraordinarily long shower first, to try and work out the tense knots in my neck. To make sure I get there in time, I’ll need to make sure I keep the shower under, ooh, say five hours long? I pull the collar of my trench coat up around my neck then shove my hands into my pockets, and walk into the pummelling rain.

_8:52_

**DEAN** : We’re gathered at the kitchen table; Sam, Charlie, her mother, and me. Her dad hums to himself as he puts bacon on the grill, but strangely I’m not hungry in the slightest. Already today I’ve showered and dressed, though I know I’ll have to do it again later. I sit on my hands to stop them from trembling. Charlie is eating a slice of toast, stupid curler things stuck at seemingly random points in her long red hair, the ends of the ties sticking out like the wings of giant insects. Sam is in his pyjamas and doesn’t quite look conscious yet. I’m sipping my third coffee of the morning; the caffeine probably isn’t helping with the shaking.

“Perfect wedding weather,” Charlie’s mom says with a tinkling laugh. I try to smile but it mustn’t be convincing because Charlie pats my shoulder sympathetically.

“Well, I didn’t pick it,” I mumble with a shrug. I wonder if Cas knew it would rain. I wonder if he’s seen today before. I haven’t asked him. The realisation curls my toes and I push my chair back from the table with a screech. “I just need to run into town,” I find myself saying. Charlie frowns.

“Sam can go for you, right Sam?” Charlie says. Sam jolts upright and nods in a manner that suggests he’s just had a firm kick in the shin.

“No, I’d like to go myself,” I say firmly. Sam nods with relief but Charlie frowns.

“I can drive you?” her mom offers.

“Thanks, Mrs Bradbury, but I really want to go by myself,” I say. She smiles and nods.

“Take your time,” she allows.

“ _Mom_ ,” Charlie protests.

“I’m not saving you any bacon,” Sam warns.

“Sammy Winchester, you’ll save your brother bacon if he wants some,” Charlie’s mom chastises. I laugh.

“It’s fine – share my portion with Charlie. I can’t eat anyways. Too nervous,” I explain with a shudder. Sam grins.

“Well,” Charlie says with a miserable sigh, “just make sure you’re back soon. I don’t think I’d have much luck explaining to Cas why you’ve left him at the alter.”

I laugh, then flee.

_9:27_

**CASTIEL** : I’m peeling off my sodden apparel when there’s a knock at my door. I’m stuck awkwardly in my sopping trousers, and I try unsuccessfully to tug them back up over my thighs. “Hang on!” I call, and shake them off over my feet. They lie strewn and soaking into the carpet. I grab my dressing gown, which is a little creased from being packed into my suitcase on the way here, and fold myself into it. It sticks to my wet skin, dark patches of moisture appearing instantly on the fabric. I open the door anyway. To my complete surprise, it’s Dean.

I blink at him uselessly for a moment, then he closes his green eyes and leans towards me, a kiss so hot and angry I’m unfurling right away. Dean reaches around my torso and I step back from the door. We move like dancers as the door slams shut. He claws his fingers into my wings and I can feel his teeth at my neck. “Dean!” I gasp.

“Fuck me,” he growls into my skin. I shiver.

“For real?” I ask tentatively. He pulls back for a moment to rip his t-shirt over his head. His hair is wet, it sprinkles dew drops on my face.

“For real,” he tells me, and then he’s kissing me again.

“I thought it was bad look for the groom to see the bride before the wedding,” I muse, as he peels the remains of my robe from me.

“It’s a good job neither of us is the bride, then,” he growls, and pushes me back onto the bed I didn’t sleep in last night. I reach up and smooth my hands all over his chest.

“Cas,” he whispers.

“Yes?”

“I have to be back by eleven,” he says desperately. I grin mischievously and slip out from beneath him, in a step I’m pressed against his ass as he leans over the end of the bed. He’s still wearing his jeans, and he’s struggling to rectify that as I look down at him.

“There’s enough time,” I assure him. He reaches back and digs his nails into my bare ass and I hiss through my teeth. “I’ll be gentle, almost husband,” I say into the space between his shoulder blades.

_11:15_

**DEAN** : I re-enter the Bradbury’s kitchen with a grimace already in place. “Where the fuck have you been?” Charlie growls. Her hair is curled now, but she’s still in her dressing gown.

“Uh,” I say uselessly. She scowls.

“That’s not the shirt you were wearing when you left,” she accuses. I glance down. Shit. I’ve picked up one of Cas’ by mistake.

“No,” I agree, with a slump of my shoulders. I am back in highschool, I’ve forgotten my homework. Charlie rolls her eyes.

“You were supposed to go with Sam and Mom to the Roadhouse to make sure all the food got there okay and stuff, but they went without you,” she explains. I nod. Thank god for that. “Jo’s coming round. She’s bringing my dress,” she reminds me. Ah. Not completely off the hook then.

Jo turns up half an hour later.

“Fuck is this?” she says with a grin as she opens the kitchen door. She’s damp, carrying two suit bags at arm’s length. She drapes them over the back of a chair. “How are you, you big dumb bastard?” she asks, squeezing me tightly in her arms. Not as bad as I was anticipating.

“Nervous, terrified, considering doing a runner,” I admit. She laughs.

“Let’s elope?” she offers. I roll my eyes, but her smile is suddenly forced.

“Jo!” Charlie exclaims, running across the kitchen to fold her into a tight embrace and save the day. Jo wobbles dangerously.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, engineering another mistake.

“Hurry or you’ll have no time for make up,” Jo calls after me. I stick up my middle finger and wave it in her general direction.

_12:55 (Cas has been Earthbound 13 years)_

**CASTIEL** : I land with a crash in the Winchester’s back yard. There is wire fencing between my low bit of wall and the hedges, and I sit up to see it goes the whole way around the garden. It’s after the fire, so it has to be at least 1990, but besides that I have no idea where I am in time. The weather is abysmal and I heave myself to my feet. Dean’s old house stands, a burnt shell in front of me. I crouch low in case any of the neighbours happen to be peering out of their windows, and walk through the place where the back door used to be. There’s a knotted plastic back just in the entrance, and I pull the clothes out that I must have stuffed in here at some point. They are unfamiliar; ill-fitting jeans and a dirty red fleece with the name ‘Hal’ emblazoned on the breast. They’re not going to do much for me in this god awful rain.

I mooch about in the kitchen for a few minutes once I’m clothed, and then give in, because this place is worse than getting soaked to the skin. I walk down Dean’s old street, and a boy wobbling on his bike stops in front of me to jam a newspaper into a letter box. I pluck it out and read it, and with a jolt I realise that today is October 23rd, 1993. I throw the newspaper on the floor and start up running as fast as I can handle.

_1:42 pm_

**DEAN** : I pull anxiously at the sleeves of my shirt, dropping the jacket of my tux off my shoulders then slipping it back on again periodically as I chew my lip. There’s a big stupid mirror in the kitchen that Jo is turning in, admiring her turquoise dress. Charlie is slouching in hers and picking at something from under a swathe of tin foil, chewing happily. I keep catching my reflection and grimacing; I can’t seem to get my face to look normal. My eyes are wide and daunted, my lips quirked down in a slight grimace of horror. It’s a wonder the look isn’t completed by a layer of sweat dripping down my forehead.

“Car’s here!” Charlie’s mom calls from the back door. She’s standing under an umbrella.

“You sure you don’t want eyeliner? There’s still time,” Jo says, elbowing me in the ribs. Sam emerges from the downstairs toilet, his face a delicate shade of green. I wonder if he’s been throwing up. The sight of him so obviously nervous is enough to make me almost smile.

“There,” Charlie says gently. She rubs her hand at the small of my back.

“Dean,” Sam chokes. I smile at him.

“You ready, little brother?” I ask. He nods with earnest.

“Sam, stop looking so nervous. It’s not like you’re the one marrying captain freak-o-zoid,” Charlie reminds him. Sam swallows but he grins.

“Hey, no insulting my almost-husband,” I warn Charlie. She beams dangerously.

“Who said I was talking about Cas?”

_1:53_

**CASTIEL** : I’d been sat in the marquee that I’ll be marrying Dean in imminently for about ten minutes when I decide I need to splash cold water on my face. The bathroom of the Roadhouse is small but nice. There’s a speaker in here. I can hear the music Dean and I picked out to play before the ceremony starts playing. It’s making my skin crawl. I look like a ghost of myself. I jump out of my skin at the sound of knuckles rapping against glass, and yank the window open to see myself grinning at me from outside.

“Give me a hand?” he says, and I nod, reaching out. He hauls himself into the room. “I’m here to save the day,” he tells me with a wink.

“Fuck, fuck,” I grumble. It’s almost fucking time. I start unbuttoning my shirt.

“It’s fine,” he assures me, and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Fuck off,” I growl and start to unbutton my pants. There is a feeling like water leaving my ear and In a flash I’m gone.

_1:55_

**DEAN** : We pull up outside the Roadhouse. It’s stopped raining now, at least. I’ve had my hand on Sam’s forearm, clutching the whole way here. Charlie appears outside my door and yanks it open. She’s frowning. “I just saw lover boy running round the back of the bar sans tuxedo,” she explains. My heart pounds.

“Just?” Sam chokes. It’s stopped raining now, which is something. I get out of the car and look searchingly over Charlie’s shoulder. There’s a horrible moment where I don’t recognise anyone at all, then I see him coming out of the door. He’s fasting a cufflink. He grins at me. I laugh.

“He’s here,” I manage to say, pulling Charlie in for a brief hug.

“Thank fuck for that,” she barks.

_Sunday, June 13, 1976 (Cas has been Earthbound 5 years)_

**CASTIEL** : I’m sprawled on the floor of my apartment. It’s a perfect summer night. Everything is covered in sheets and the apartment doesn’t belong to me yet. I lie there, naked and swearing, for a long time, then I force myself to get up and check the little cabinet in the corner in case Gabriel’s been here already and stashed his vodka there. I’m in luck. I swig it directly from the bottle and grimace. I press my eyes into my knees.

_Saturday, October 23, 1993 (Cas has been Earthbound 13 years, and 5, and Dean is 22)_

**DEAN:** At the front of the marguee I realise that I don’t give a shit that it’s started raining again and I can hear it and it almost drowns out the sound of out vows. I decide I don’t care that this ceremony isn’t legally or religiously binding, or that it really is irrelevant considering I’ve known it was going to happen since I was seventeen, and it’s probably bene inevitable forever, and will be for always. Cas would say that all things are like that, and I decide I don’t care that that’s how he thinks, that’s what he believes. I decide it doesn’t matter. He smiles at me, a smile that belongs in this moment, at this time, wherever point in our lives together he’s coming from. He says he loves me with the same voice, and the same eyes sparkle as I answer. He’s mine, my Cas, my angel, and I’m his too. He kisses me a little longer than is appropriate, but Charlie whoops and I laugh into Cas’ lips. He spins me round. We walk down the aisle arm in arm and beaming. I swear he doesn’t take his eyes off me once the whole way.

_6:22pm_

**CASTIEL** : There is a seemingly endless procession of guests before Dean and I are allowed to finally sit down, but when we do, we still don’t get to escape. People come to us, consider us across the table as though we are assessing them for interview. I hold Dean’s hand and he smiles proudly. He looks over at me, occasionally, as though to check that I’m still here. I steal cheeky kisses from the salty skin of his neck, and he smiles wider. People have noticed that I have no guests of my own. They look at me with sideways glances. Dean leans into me, conspiratorial, and whispers, “I love you,” and I whisper back “I love you too.”

“When are you coming from?” he says. It’s a break in the flow of visitors and wellwishers. He said earlier he feels like Bilbo Baggins on the day of his hundred and first birthday, expecting the Sackville-Bagginses to turn up and spoil the day at any minute. I chuckled and his eyes flashed and he asked when he finally got me to read the books.

“2002,” I tell him. He searches me, and I smile patiently. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says quickly and looks away. I catch his jaw, ignoring the approach of his distant relatives. His eyes narrow just a little. “I don’t want to think about it,” he admits. I nod.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, because his smile has vanished. He sighs and turns, facing me now instead of us sitting side by side.

“I just remembered that you seem kind of… sad whenever you say you come from around the millennium,” he admits this with a shrug.

“You’re more perceptive that I give you credit for,” I sigh and he scowls.

“I’ve very perceptive,” he scoffs. “Cute too,” he says, indignant. I chuckle fondly.

“That you are, oh husband of mine,” I say. He’s radiant again.

_7:27pm_

**DEAN** : We are supposed to be heading to dinner at this big hotel in town, where Cas and I will spend the night. People are filing into cars. I’m swaying, tipsy, but Cas keeps me steady. As we arrive at the hotel he pulls me aside, smiling crookedly. “Cas?” I ask.

“There’s a complication,” he tells me, smirking. I frown.

“What?”

“Just. I thought I’d give you an advance warning. I don’t know how you feel about… that kind of thing,” he says. He’s pulling me towards the elevator, a mischievous look in his eye.

“Huh?” I say dumbly as he takes me in the lift. Cas generally avoids lifts; he’s scared of getting trapped inside of them, getting unstuck and falling down the shaft. He pulls me to his chest, his expression amused.

“Menage a trois.” He says, darkly.

“ _Oh,_ ” I say, and Cas laughs. He presses a kiss to my neck.

_10:12 (Cas has been Earthbound 5 years)_

**CASTIEL** : I’m dancing with Charlie, out of time with the music, and she’s too drunk, laughing ridiculously as she holds onto my lapels for support. The change-over was easy; older me said he wanted to get some rest, came up to our room, and I put on his clothes; my clothes. We have eaten dinner, cut and eaten the cake. Sam made a tearful and heart-warming speech that I’m sure Dean will tease him about for decades. I catch sight of Dean, over by the bar, and then of his friend Jo beside him. I’m unsure of them, of her. It’s unfair I know but it makes me uncomfortable.

“She’ll come round,” says Charlie, with confidence. I huff out a breath.

“I hope so,” I tell her, but I don’t really care. Dean is mine, and I am his. It’s wonderful.

_12:31_

**DEAN** : We’ve done it; we’ve escaped. We’ve kissed and hugged our way through our relatives, and hear we are, outside of our room. My stomach twists with anticipation; this is the first time I will see them both. Cas is drunk, but his gaze is steady, his grip on my hand firm but cautious as he looks me up and down. I want to open his head and read his thoughts like a book. He opens the door. Cas is curled up on the bed, on his side, dark plumage into a colourful reflecting pool at his back. The curtains are open, moonlight pouring through the tall window, making his skin seem a perfect, milky white. Of course, he’s also at my side, fully dressed in his tuxedo, the moon curve of his pale ass hidden by his pants. I bite my lip. He kisses me.

On the bed, he stirs, and I turn but now-Cas catches my face in his hands. I want to turn and watch him slide gloriously out of bed, but he won’t let me. He’s regarding me with fearful eyes. He drops his hands fast and his fingers dart to his throat, unbuttoning his shirt. I turn back to other-Cas, now walking towards me, and he takes both of my hands. “It’s alright,” he says softly. I nod. He smiles fondly. “He’s jealous,” he tells me. I glance back at now-him, and he looks a little sheepish. I step back towards him and kiss his collar bone. We are married. All of us. Both of us. Now.


	9. Home is Where the Heart Is

_March, 1994 (Dean is 22, Cas is from 1994)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

And so we are married. For a while, we tried to live in Cas’ apartment. It was beautiful there; I loved the floors, the walls, the bed, but they weren’t _ours_. They were his. For months I tried but I couldn’t make my marks on that place stick. Cas wasn’t happy about moving, in case he travelled back to the apartment and someone else was living in it, but eventually he concedes that if it happens, he’ll just have to deal with it, and so we buy a little two bedroomed apartment in Ravenswood. It has honey-coloured wood floors that drink in the sunlight and rickety old cabinets in the kitchen that look like they should be on a theatre stage and not in functional use. Its better, but only a little, so we buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have.

I learn that Cas is quiet. He spends so much time being quiet that I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like I have to tiptoe around him so as not to break the silence. It makes it hard to breathe. I don’t understand it.

Eventually, we find a routine between the arguments about brands of muesli and this apparently unreasonable desire of mine to not have clothes strewn across the bedroom floor. In the mornings I get up and start the coffee, and wake him up with gentle nips on his ear, and he rolls out of bed and drinks the coffee I’ve made him in silence. He does smile at least. Then he showers. I have picked up a job in this little art shop not far from where we live, but it pays pennies, and I don’t mean it to but Cas’ lack of employment begins to grate on me. I know it’s stupid. He can’t get a job because he doesn’t exist. He has no social security number, no ID whatsoever. No employer in their right mind would even consider giving him a job. As he so readily points out; he’s not even human. Still, I find myself bitter. He notices, too. He’s quiet about it. Like everything.

In the evenings I shut myself into my tiny back bedroom studio and try to make art in the stifling silence of our home. It’s too quiet to work – it’s always too quiet even to think about maybe possible working. It makes the noise in my head shy to come out and play. I struggle to even make sketches of sculptures; my palms itch with the desire to be carving, cutting, welding something, but all I can do is grip my pencil and chew the end of it, worrying that the sound of the impacting wood around the pencil’s core will disturb Cas, and really fucking wanting it to. Somehow I choke out enough to paper the walls with pages of ten, twelve, fifteen sketchbooks, and I touch them all before I sit down to work again. Every day the sketches get smaller and less elaborate, like my ideas know that they aren’t really being freed at all. I start to stick sketches on the ceiling, of tiny fragile things, of broken birds in teacups and feathers made out of glass.

The silences of Cas presence are punctuated by the silences of his absence. Absences somehow manage to be even more silent than the presence; quiet pressing my eardrums so hard it feels like like it’s going to make them bleed. Sometimes he disappears unobtrusively; I will nip his ear in bed and return to the kitchen, and he won’t emerge. I’ll tread back to the bedroom and his pajama pants will be lying there, deflated. Other’s he leaves with a bark or a cry, and I will hear a plate smash and go running, only to find him gone, and just a pile of his clothes where he should have been standing. Sometimes I shout at the space he’s gone from, deaf and bitter frustration that he’s gone. This wasn’t part of the deal, I think sometimes, but then I remember that it was. I sleep in his empty shirts. I wonder where he’s sleeping.

When he gets back he tells me about his trips as though he’s talking about a walk in the park or a weekend away. I watch and wind my fingers into his wing feathers. I wait for him to tell me he’s been back and visited me, but it hasn’t happened yet, and I keep wondering why. I sleep swathed in wings and arms and one tossed leg, barely a need for sheets. He has bad dreams and he pretends he doesn’t, and I pretend that he doesn’t too. Sometimes he comes back bleeding and shaking.

When I was a kid his visits were exciting, but now I’m on the other side, and waiting, I’m terrified every time he’s gone. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up like this, with this man who’s not really a man, who’s here and there rather than right where I need him to be. I get angry at his absence. I get angry when he comes back. It begins to wear me thin, until I cannot breathe.

Then, always, as though he’s heard my turmoil as if I’d been shouting it right through to him, he’ll do something perfect. He’ll kiss my neck, trail his hand along my spine. He’ll wash all the clothes and dry them and fold them into neat, square piles at the foot of the bed. And I remember I love him, and that’s why I’m here.

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

Dean is out buying groceries.

I was asleep. I spent the night running away from a bunch of drunk kids in a field somewhere in Michigan. Exhausted and bruised, I curled into our bed with mud still on my feet. “Baby,” Dean had cooed. “Are you alright?”

“No,” I’d grumbled.

He left a note on the pillow this morning that promised fancy ingredients for me to cook. I’ve made Dean swear to keep out of the kitchen, following the pasta bake fiasco during our first post-marital week. Dean refuses to let me bring it up now but our food prep arsenal is sorely suffering the loss of my best casserole dish.

I’m peering doubtfully into the cupboards to see what utensils Dean has managed not to burn that I might be able to cook with later, when I realise he’s left the stereo on in his little studio. With a huff, I trudge back there. I pause in the doorway. The ground of this little room is sacred. I’ve hardly ever set foot in here. The walls are papered thick with beautiful drawings. The floor is scattered with them too. I switch off the stereo. I catch sight of a delicate sketch laid out on the desk. A little green bird, caged in with ugly black lines.

A shock of guilt courses through me like I’ve come unstuck into the middle of a snow storm. My beautiful one, heart of my hearts, he’s been making my days and all I’ve been doing is penning him in. I sit down on the little chair at his desk and it creaks. The seat is worn familiar to the shape of his body. How many hours has he spent crammed into here, stuffed awkwardly into this tiny space.  I realise I have to do something, or he’s going to go insane, and it will definitely be my fault.

 

_Wednesday, April 13, 1994 (Dean is 22, Cas is from 1994)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I hear Cas’ key in the door and haul myself up off the couch to see him stumbling through the door way with a huge, filthy TV set. He sets it on the floor next to our tiny dining table. “What the hell, Cas?”

He shrugs. “It was ten dollars.”

I whistle. “Wow. Big spender.”

He rolls his eyes. I tap the faded plastic with the socked toe and it comes away with a smear of greasy grey. “Gross.” I mutter. The TV’s antenna shake.

“Yes. Well. There’s something on tonight I think you might want to see,” Cas says, with a shaky energy I haven’t seen him have for too long. Intrigued, I sit down at the table. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to sit and stare at it,” he tells me softly, planting a kiss onto my forehead. With a churn I realise I have forgotten why we didn’t have a TV before. The flickering images make Cas come unstuck. I grab the sleeve of his shirt.

“Don’t go disappearing on me.”

“Calm down, oh husband of mine. I’ll go sit in the bedroom if it’ll make you feel better about it,” he chuckles. I smile nervously. I turn my attention back to the TV.

“That might be a good idea.” I tell him. He sighs and turns on the kettle. I look around at him with a frown. “Hey. If you say you’re going to do something, you should do it mister.”

“It’s not on until eight. I can go and sit in there on my own for an hour and a half if you’d really like, but I’d like to make a coffee first.”

“Oh. Right.” I lean back in my chair. I wrack my brains; I should still be able to remember the TV schedule by heart, Sammy and I spent enough time staring at it. I can’t for the life of me think of anything that would make Cas want to risk coming unstuck.  

“What would you do, if you had a huge studio?”

I scowl at him. “Don’t, Cas.”

“Don’t what?”

“Talk about impossible things.”

Cas brushes a hand across my cheek. “Play the game.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’d draw on gigantic rolls of paper. I’d make huge mock-ups for sculptures every day. I’d have three different kinds of wood for carving, and a whole bucket of broken glass, and a whole station set up from glue and plaster,” I sigh. “Maybe I could even learn how to work stone.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Cas mutters, and he kisses my forehead.

I open my eyes. “Huh. Well. There’s no point talking about it, really. It’s never going to happen. I’ll be working out of that closet for the rest of my life.”

Cas grins mischievously and goes to finish making coffee. He presents me with mine and obediently hops off towards the bedroom. Grouchily, I carry my mug to my studio and stand in the doorway, staring at it, at all my work crammed in there. The vision of an imagined warehouse filled with tools and space and fresh air is still lingering in my mind’s eye, and seeing my actual workspace makes my heart sink. I slump over to the desk, trace the outline of my little green finch in his tiny cage, and lean down to pull out a new piece of paper. In doing so, I dislodge my carefully stacked pile of sketchbooks and they all come tumbling towards me. I cringe, throwing my hands up in my face. They barely make a sound as they slide gracefully over one another towards the floor. I crouch down, picking them up and lifting them on the desk. I really ought to go through them. I don’t have the space, really. I smooth the faded grey cover of one of them. I couldn’t toss them out, of course. Maybe Sammy would have some space? I sigh and reach to put the grey book on top of the others.

A loose sheet falls out; a messy sketch of Cas lying on the floor, asleep. From the style I assume it’s got to be from my early teens. I brush a finger over it, charcoal set by hair spray. I lift the paper to my nose and I can still smell it, sort of. It takes me back to my high school days, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to get the spikes of my hair to look _just_ right. And Cas was there. Of course. Cas is always there somewhere. I fold in into the cover and clamber back into my chair. I pull out my charcoals, a sheet of A3, and get to work on a new version of the piece I just found. At first it’s just my index finger that gets turned dusty black, but then my entire hand, my arm, my knees, and probably my face. I end up working on the floor over the paper, like I sometimes hold myself suspended over Cas when we fuck, or sometimes just after. That’s the expression I start off wanting to draw; blissed out, Cas at his most divine. As I work it turns into something else. His eyes are too wide, expression too desperate. This Cas is reaching out to the page, fingers splayed and muscles straining, reaching like he did through the window of that car when I was a kid, to yank me through a small rectangle of jagged glass and toppling into a pile of snow; shaking, frightened, watching as the car hit the back of the one in front of it and -

“Dean,” Cas says softly from behind me.

“Huh?” I look around at him.

“It’s almost eight.”

I blink. I look down. The page is more black than white now. The Cas is visceral. Real Cas frowns at him, and gives me a questioning look. “I found an old sketch of you. Felt like drawing something comforting.”

“That doesn’t look comforting,” Cas points out, his voice taut. He looks hurt. I get to my feet.

“Come on. Lets go watch some TV.”

In the living room, Cas hands me a tiny square of white paper, and turns on the TV set. It fuzzes for a moment, then the picture settles. For a moment it’s too blurry to make out, but it rights itself in time for the logo for the Illinois lottery. I look at the paper Cas gave me, now smudged with charcoal prints of my fingers. It’s a lottery ticket. “Holy shit.”

“Just watch,” Cas murmurs, as the announcer tells us there’s been a rollover from last week up to eleven million dollars.

“Cas. You didn’t.”

“Would you watch the programme?” He sighs dramatically. He’s sat behind the set, watching my face excitedly. The guy reads out the numbers, which of course match the ones on the grubby piece of paper that I have in my hands. The guy tells us there’s a lucky winner in Chicago, and congratulates us on our winnings. Cas is staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I just shake my head. “What?”

“But… you cheated?”

“Ah, yes. I forgot. It only counts when you have absolutely no shot at winning,” he tells me indulgently, rolling his eyes.

“It’s not allowed,” I find myself whispering.

“Honey. Are you going to explain to someone that I time-travelled to tomorrow and happened to read the paper when I was there? Don’t you think they’ll lock you up and claim your winnings back to the state?” Cas asks, turning off the TV set and coming to sit next to me on the couch. He takes the ticket off me and twiddles it in his fingers.

“Hey! Be careful!”

“Why? We could win the lottery every week if we wanted to,” Cas points out, shrugging.

“ _Cas_!” I protest, snatching the paper back. It’s slightly crumpled. I smooth it between my palms. “Oh my god, Cas. Eleven million fucking dollars.”

“Gigantic paper. Three kinds of wood,” Cas reminds me. I feel my eyes get wider. Of course, Dean, you jerk. He could have won the lottery any time if he’d wanted to. He chose not to because he wanted to try and be normal. He did this for you, you total dumbass.

I launch myself at him, kissing him hard and tearing at his clothing. “Hey!” he gasps. “You’ll tear the ticket.” I reach around him and put it carefully on the coffee table.

“Eleven million dollars,” I say, and I kiss him again.

“Eleven mill-” he begins, but I cut him off. I unbutton his shirt but get bored half way and tear it the rest, buttons popping and skittering across the floor. Frenzied, we strip, rutting and grinding. Cas’ soft hands knead gently against my ass but I’m having none of that.

“No,” I growl, pinning his hands above his head. There’s a sound like someone kicking over a laundry basket and a smell that’s a gazillion times better; chocolatey and fresh somehow and all around. Cas wings surround us both and he gasps in pain as one of them cushions our fall, displaced from the couch my his massive appendages. I rake my hands through them, the feathers soft and almost wet around my fingers. Cas moans, the sound long and trembling and absolutely criminal. “Beautiful,” I murmur, and he croons.

“Don’t stop,” he begs, reaching down and grabbing my cock, the breath catching in my throat as he moves his hand up and down, up and down. I comb my fingers further into his plumage and it rises around me, engulfing us. Cas’ rhythm stutters to a halt so I freeze too. “Dean!” he barks.

“Hmm?”

“Please don’t stop, please.”

I chuckle darkly and withdraw one hand. He shivers. I knot the other hand in tighter, grabbing the softest, smallest feathers on his wings; the ones right at their base. Cas yelps, his grip on me tightening but not unpleasantly. I shove one of my fingers into his open mouth. “Suck,” I command. Cas obeys, eyes closed, breathing heavy.

I stare down at him for a moment, entranced, and then his eyes open, a sliver of perfect blue lighting up his pink flushed face. “Dean,” he pleads around my finger. “ _Please_.”

I shake my head. “Bed.”

“No,” he groans.

“Come on, Cas. Play the game,” I taut. He glares at me, forcing himself to sit up. His wings disappear into nothing and I slam forwards against his chest.

“Serves you right,” he grumbles, getting to his feet. When he turns to lead the way to the bedroom, I slap his ass hard enough to make his wings tumble back again and he swears at my profusely and almost continuously from that moment until I’ve got him spread beneath me, wings arched around us again. I put a pillow under the small of his back and he laughs for a moment.

“Shut up,” I growl at him.

“Oh, I like it when you’re feisty, Winchester,” he bites back at me.

“I said shut up.”

“Come on, sweet heart,” he croons.

“Fuck you,” I hiss.

“Oh, god. Please, PLEASE do!”

I most certainly do.

_Saturday, July 9 th 1994 (Dean is 22, Cas is from 1994)_

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

We moved in today.

For a long time, it didn’t feel like it was going to happen. About twenty houses in to our property search, Dean finally got sick for my method of house hunting and told me to keep my nose out of it. I’d been to our house, this house, once before. It was a winter morning, and I appeared in the spot I’m standing in right now, at the glass doors that overlook the garden. There was frost on the grass, and Dean had been wearing a thick jumper, standing out in the cold outside a long, redbrick building that looked like it might have been a barn or a storage space at some point. It had a huge wooden door, the size of a garage door, but on sliders. It was flung wide open. Inside, I could see the wiry frame of what I knew must have been the beginnings of one of Dean’s sculptures. Accordingly, my focus in our house viewings was to go through to the kitchen and look out of the back doors. If the view wasn’t right, then I knew it wasn’t the place. Our estate agent thought I was insane. Dean kept telling her I was a gardening enthusiast, but I don’t think she was very much convinced. In the end, Dean forced the truth out of me about what I was doing, and barred me from attendance to future visits. “If it’s the right place, that’s where we’ll end up,” he’d told me with a shrug. Those kinds of notions make me uncomfortable, but there wasn’t much else I could do. He found it though. And here we are.

The kitchen is filled with boxes of books. I’m leaning against one of them. The doors are wide open, tempting in a breeze that catches pleasantly on my sweat damp skin. It’s been hot all day, and I pitied the moving people in their polo shirts, going up and down the stairs to our apartment, laden heavy with our books and our heavy Victorian furniture.

Dean is in the garden. He’s been there all afternoon, since they brought in the last of the boxes. He’s taken his sketches out to their new home, in the currently stark and naked warehouse that will be his studio. He’s lying on the grass on an old picnic blanket, his arms above his head. There’s an empty bottle of wine next to him. Our glasses are balanced between our abandoned shoes. I’ve got a new bottle in my hand to take out to him, but I almost can’t bear to make myself move. How did I get here? How have I found this? It’s bliss. It’s too perfect to be true. The beauty of it makes it seem fragile, like if I do so much as take a wrong breath then it will shatter.

There’s space here, unlike in our apartment, for me to stand with my wings out. The breeze ruffles my feathers and I sigh. Dean looks up and smiles at me. The sun has kissed more freckles into his skin. “What you doing way over there?” he complains.

“Nothing,” I tell him, and I make myself move, wade through the air that’s so hot and humid I swear it laps against my skin with every step. I kneel next to him, run my hand down his chest through his thrown-open shirt. His skin is a few shades darker than it was this morning.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks me, frowning. I trace a finger over his eyebrow.

“Time,” I tell him.

“What about it?”

I shrug. “Just that it happens.”

Dean sighs. “Yeah. It’s weird.”

I chuckle. “Very weird.”

“Cas?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

I smile, trail my finger down to skirt around the edges of his lips. “I love you too.”

 

_Saturday, January 15 th 1995 (Dean is 23, Cas is from 1995 and 2003)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

Cas, Charlie and I are meeting Sam’s new girlfriend for the first time. She’s called Jess. She’s timid and blonde and majoring law, like Sam, and she’s very eager to impress us. She brought us expensive wine, and the monopoly set that she and Sam have customised into a game called ‘Modern Capitalist Mind-Fuck’. Charlie thinks that’s basically all that normal monopoly is, anyway, and when she said that Jess looked so downhearted that I snorted. Cas kicked me in the shin and tells me next time we went to get wine that I have to be nice.

“I do not,” I tell him, indignantly.

He rolls his eyes. “Evidently. But Sam was nice when he met me for the first time. Go easy on her.”

“Charlie isn’t being nice,” I counter huffily. Cas grabs another pack of chips out of the cupboard and kisses me on the tip of the nose.

“No, but I refer you to the earlier example. She wasn’t peachy when I met her either. Now be nice, or you’ll scare her off,” Cas warns, and skips back out into the dining room, but not before I manage to sneak in a sly pinch of his ass.

Charlie lands on the community chest and draws a card. She frowns. “Which modern technological invention would you condemn to Room 101 for the good of society?” she asks.

“TV,” I say.

“What about Dr Sexy?” Charlie asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah. Um. Aeroplanes,” I reply, vehemently.

“You big wuss,” Sam says with a laugh. “I’ll go with… gun powder.”

“That’s not really modern,” Jess points out.

“Alright, missy, where’s your answer?” Sam protests, with a roll of his eyes.

“The assembly line.”

Charlie nods approvingly. “Yes, good. A tool of the capitalist machine. Ten points for you, five for Dean, none for Sam because he’s such an old man at heart he called ‘gun powder a modern invention… Cas, you haven’t answered.”

He grimaces. “Motion detectors.”

“And how will de-invention benefit society?”

“They’re a nuisance. I keep coming unstuck in the stacks at the Newberry after hours and the bastards pick me up as soon as I get there. I have to run away from the guards completely starkers. It’s no fun at all,” he grumbles. I shoot a look at Jess, then another at Sam. Jess is looking sympathetic and I feel a pang of guilt for my early cruelty. It can’t be an easy thing to hear about someone like Cas. Actually, I think Jess is the only person so far to have only heard, and not seen, without demanding proof.

“Hmm,” Charlie considers Cas’ response for a moment. “I think that’s valuing the needs of the individual over the many, isn’t it? Dictat Sam?”

“Yes, it is. Sorry Cas, that’s put you back ten places.”

Cas moves his figure back and lands on go. He holds his hand out towards Sam for his dole out of cash. “Thank you,” he says in a sing song voice, and slips the new notes with the others he’s keeping under the rim of his glass.

Charlie is amidst the complicated process of attempting to buy a property from the state, when there’s a huge bang in the kitchen. Sam and I move to stand up but Cas yells. “ _Sit down._ ” He sounds so forceful that we do, immediately and without argument. Cas runs into the kitchen. The others all look to me, startled.

“Fuck knows.” I do know, though. There is a low murmur of voices and I hear Cas moan. It sends a knife into my gut. The other three stay sat, frozen, listening, but I get to my feet and quietly follow Cas into the kitchen.

My Cas is crouched on the floor, holding a dishcloth against the head of the man on the floor, which is, of course, also Cas. The dresser that used to hold our crockery is on it’s side, the plates and glasses have formed a glittering mess around the new Cas, who is sweating and bleeding onto the floor. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and they both look up at me.

“Dean,” new Cas says, his voice desperate. My Cas frowns and looks down at him, biting his lip.

“Hey, it’s alright,” I tell him. I crouch down beside them both.

“You’re so young,” he says, reaching up to brush a finger across my cheek. “When are we?”

“1995,” my Cas answers smoothly.

“You just moved in,” new Cas realises. He drops his hand from my face and grimaces. “God this hurts,” he complains.

“Shall I call an ambulance?” I ask, in a whisper. He doesn’t answer. I look at my Cas and he shrugs. I pick a piece of glass from Cas’ chest and he whimpers. “Sorry, baby.”

“Don’t,” he groans. He catches my wrist.

“What happens?” now-Cas asks him.

“I’ll be gone in a few seconds.” I clutch his hand. Now-Cas stares at our interlocked fingers and won’t meet my eye. He stands up. “I’m sorry,” Cas croaks.

“Hey, don’t be an idiot,” I tell him.

“Close your eyes,” he warns.

“Why?” I ask, but I do as he says. There’s a crack and his hand disappears from mine, and hundreds of shards of glass tinkle brightly to the ground. I open my eyes again. He’s gone.

Cas puts a hand on my shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

I shake my head. “Cas. What was that?”

“What’s with all the glass?” Charlie asks from the doorway. We both look up at her. Neither of us have a response.

“I need to lie down,” Cas mumbles.

“Okay,” I say, getting to my feet. Cas slinks upstairs. I turn off the kitchen light and close the door behind me.

“Dean, you’re bleeding!” Sam says with some alarm.

“It’s not me,” is all I can say. I make everyone coffee, sit everyone in the living room, and leave to take a mug up to Cas. He's lying on the bed on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The curtains are open and moonlight streams through the window, drinking the colour out of his skin. He looks like a ghost of himself, lying there. For a moment it's like I've stepped into a dream of him. It doesn't feel real. The Cas that was downstairs didn't seem real, either. "Cas?"

"Mm."

I sit next to him, putting his coffee on the bedside table. He moves to look at me, but doesn't say anything. 

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" I ask him. He sits up, puts his hand on my cheek. "Cas. That was different."

"I know," he murmurs, swiping his thumb over my cheekbone. "I'm sorry."


	10. In Between Days

_Sunday, December 17 th 1995 (Dean is 20, Cas is from 1995)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

It’s a bitterly cold, but beautifully snowy morning, the kind that only gets thrown at you a couple of times a year if you’re lucky. Sam and I are walking along the river in thick coats. We went into the city for breakfast – my treat, obviously, since Cas and I are making a killing in the stock market and Sam’s a broke-ass student who just moved into a new flat – because we hardly see each other just the two of us these days. Cas wanted a ride to the Newberry anyway. It’s been almost two hours of talking about Christmas bargains and the horrors of moving in with long term partners. He and Jess are still living out of boxes even though they’ve been in their new place for almost a month and a half already.

“She’s unpacked the Christmas tree, but not the rest of the crockery. We eat everything off the same three plates,” he complains. “I already felt like I was caught in an endless cycle of washing and dirtying the crockery when we had sixteen plates and a washer.”

“Well, you know. That’s life. You’re either trying to cook something or trying to chip it off a casserole dish three hours later,” I laugh, shaking my head. Cas still hasn’t forgiven me for that, even though I went and bought the exact same dish for him a week later.

“Like you ever have to chip dirt off plates. Just buy more.”

I roll my eyes. “Shut it, Sammy, or Santa won’t be stopping at the new Winchester/Moore residence.”

“What’s Jess done?”

I shrug. “She’s guilty by association.”

Sam elbows me in the ribs. “Oh, whatever. I thought Santa brought sacks of coal to people on the naughty list, anyway? That still constitutes a visit, surely.”

“Now Sammy,” I sigh, stopping and putting a hand on his shoulder. “We need to have a talk about Santa. I think you’re old enough that you can handle the truth of it.”

“You mean… he’s not real?” Sam asks, his eyes wide. The conversation is a far cry from the real one wed had some fifteen years ago now, Sam screaming at me and throwing the Lego I’d shop lifted from the mall right back in my face. “You’re going to have to start watching your mouth, bandying that kind of top secret information about.”

I look up and down the street theatrically and shrug. “I see no small humans to be corrupted.”

Sam’s grinning at me now, huge and conspiratorial. “Ugh, Jess is going to kill me if I tell you when she’s not here.” Sam groans, but his smile is radiant. “I’m going to be on the naughty list for the next hundred years.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Well, that’s put images in my head I don’t deserve.”

Sam’s still beaming at me and I can’t help but smile back. “Come on, Sammy. Say what you’re saying.”

“She’s really going to kill me,” Sam tells me, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, fuck it, Sammy! You’re eleven feet tall and she’s a miniscule pixie! What’s she going to do? Gnaw your ankles and hope you croak from blood loss?”

“Nah, but I hear pregnant women can be pretty grouchy. It’ll probably be more like death by wounded self-esteem.”

I freeze, looking him dead in the eye. “Sammy.”

He ducks his head, trying to hide his still-giant smile. “Yeah.”

“Holy shit. Could you have at least waited until you were out of school?” I protest, but I’m laughing and reaching out to him. I clutch him close to my chest, grabbing a fistful of his coat.

Sam pulls away, shaking his head, and I try to blink the tears that aren’t forming in the corners of my eyes out of the way. “We went for the first scan yesterday.”

“Scans already?” I ask.

“She’s ten weeks.”

“Oh, you scamp!” I laugh, shaking my head.

 “I uh, I’ve got a picture,” he says, rummaging around in the pockets of his coat and pulling out a small card. He handed it to me. Inside is a blurry black and white picture of a barely distinguishable thing, in a cone of darkness. “There’s the hand,” Sammy tells me, pointing with a gloved finger. “And the feet are here.” Once he’s pointed it out, it’s easier to recognise the blob as an almost-human.

“Oh my god,” I whisper. “This is insane.”

“I know, right?” Sam says, taking the photo back and putting it away again. I whistle, shaking my head. I can’t look him in the eye. Little Sam, pain in the ass Sammy, my baby brother, all grown up. “I’m going to be a dad.”

I look up at the pale grey sky. “I’m going to be an uncle,” I realise.

**_LATER_ **

Cas is in front of the fire, reading. He sits cross legged, his wings unfurled and arching over his head, but bent to face back towards his body. I’m chewing pop-corn kernels, sucking the last bits of sugar and salt off of them before I surrender the bowl to the kitchen, and thinking about sliding onto the floor to press kisses to his spine and knot my hands into his feathers. He sighs and stretches, one massive appendage trembling as he spreads them across the room. He slumps forwards, casting his book to the side.

“Cas?”

“Mm?” he says, without looking up.

“Sam and Jess are having a baby,” I tell him.

“Uh…” he says. The wings fold against his body and then, so fast that I always, always miss the moment when, disappear into nothingness.

“You knew?”

Cas rolled onto his back, looking up at me. “I saw them with a baby.”

I grin. “Oh my god. Is it gigantic?”

He chuckles. “No. She’s normal human baby size.”

“She?” I echo, sliding down to join him on the rug. He rolls over so he’s balancing himself over me. I reach up and trace the line of his jaw.

“Oops. It kind of slipped out.” He shrugs and leans to kiss me on the forehead.

“You didn’t tell me you went somewhere else,” I point out.

He sighs. “I did. It was a few weeks ago, now. I was only there for a few minutes. They were in the living room.”

I wrack my brains and dimly remember that he’s telling the truth. Something about it makes my stomach churn. It’s like being a kid again. He’s keeping things from me. I look up into his blue eyes, all sparkling and perfect right above me. “Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?”

“I thought it was the kind of thing you’d want to find out from Sam,” he explains, frowning. “I’m sorry. Have I upset you?”

I shake my head, but I’m lying. He’s right though. It was better to hear it from Sam. Right at that moment I get a stabbing pain in my chest, the same as I’ve been having for weeks now, and I grimace.

“Are you having that pain again?” he asks me, voice low. I nod. He avoids my gaze, sitting back on his heels. Behind him the fire crackles and spits. I sit up, still holding my hand against my chest.

“Man. I got to stop having cheeseburgers for breakfast,” I mumble. Cas laughs.

“Seriously? Again?” He shakes his head, leaning over to kiss my cheeks. “What do you eat when I’m not around?”

I consider for a moment. “Eh. Mostly cheeseburgers.” I shrug.

“Jesus, Dean!” Cas exclaims, but he’s laughing. Cas loops his arms around me, but he’s still not looking me in the eye. There’s something off about his laughter, too. Maybe it’s just guilt that he thinks he’s upset me, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more. When we trail upstairs to bed, he peels my clothes off with painstaking slowness, running his hands down my chest, digging is fingernails into my thighs. He kisses everywhere he can, slow religious kisses that leave my skin glistening and the rest of me gagging for more. I want to be ravished, but he won’t let me tip him over the edge into the carnal. He fucks me slow, too, after spending what feels like several years working me open.

“C’mon, Cas,” I plead, reaching up and raking my fingers down his back until his wings tumble into view. “I’m not some delicate virgin prince who’s going to shatter if you don’t work me right.”

“Shut up,” he growls. I tug at his feathers and he throws his head back, gasping with pleasure. “I love you, I love you,” he moans. Finally he slides into me, my legs looped around his waist, pushing him harder. He knocks the bedside lamp onto the floor with his wing and we’re plunged into almost darkness, the only light pouring orange through the gap in the curtains and catching his eyes, turning their blue into a strange hollow turquoise, like sea water caught in a bottle.

I come first, and he follows soon after, falling forwards onto my chest despite the stickiness, panting and clutching one fistful of my hair, one fistful of the bed sheets. I run my hands down his back and he shivers. He makes a small crooning sound and his back shakes. He’s crying. “Baby,” I mutter, rolling him to the side so I can look him properly in the eye, but he squeezes them shut so I can’t. “What is it?” I ask him, desperate.

He shakes his head. “I love you,” he tells me.

“I know.”

He opens his eyes then, searching mine. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

He shakes his head and rubs his eyes hard with the heel of his hand. “I can’t tell you.”

My stomach twists into a knot. “You can. I promise.”

He shakes his head once, firmly. “I’m just being stupid.” He rolls out of bed and pads into the on suite. I follow him. He’s tucked his wings away and gone to stand under the hot stream of the shower. I stand behind him, silent, my arms wrapped around his chest. Neither of us say anything. Whatever is going on seems bigger than words. I remember, suddenly and viscerally, carving my driftwood Cas years before, the carefully constructed agony in his expression. What happens to you, my love, to make you seem so sad? I plant a kiss between his shoulder blades. What happens to _us_?

 

_Monday, March 11 th 1996 (Cas is from 1996)_

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

It’s raining and it’s windy and I left my coat on the backseat of the impala this morning when I got out of it. Dean thinks I’m at the library. I’m not. I’m outside the hospital in Hyde Park. I’ve been following Gabriel all morning. I just got out of my cab, but he’s still sat in his, talking to the driver or something. It’s weird to see him trying to function in the human world like I do.

It wasn’t my intention to follow him. I’ve been meaning to try and find him for a while, but it was total coincidence that he happened to cross the street just ahead of me when I went out to get coffee. I might not have been so compelled to tail him if he hadn’t been wearing a suit. Last time we spoke – which was some time in 1991, I forget precisely when – when he’d manifested in this plane he’d always gone for the slacks and loose t-shirts get up. Now he’s all buttoned up. It’s bizarre.

He climbs out of his taxi, raising his hand to the driver. He’s got a briefcase and everything. He spots me under the covered entrance and raises his hand to me, too, as though we were colleagues or something. I don’t raise my hand back.

I follow him into the hospital. He smiles at the receptionist. He gets into the lift with a few other people, and I follow him. It’s too crowded for me to say anything, and he won’t meet my eye, though I can see that he’s smirking slightly. The woman standing next to me is watching the drip of my shirt. He gets off on the third floor. I follow him out, hurriedly pushing past the people that followed me in and muttering apologies under my breath. He’s speeding down the corridor, until he reaches a wooden door to the right, just after we pass another reception desk. He takes s bunch of keys out of his pocket and fiddles with them.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask when I get to him.

He looks up, obviously amused. “I’m working,” he replies. “I realise that’s something of a foreign concept to you, Cassie dear, but you could at least pretend like you even abstractly understand.” He flashes me his bright white teeth.

“What are you talking about?” I demand, just as he finds the keys for his door. He opens it, the name plaque fastened at eye-level glistening in the light.

“Step into my office, Cassie, and we can talk this through.”

I follow him inside. The door swings shut. There are certificates on the wall. They must be counterfeited. Gabriel is not a cardiovascular surgeon. That would absurd. I shudder; he’s deceiving people. Has anyone lost their life through fault of his little entertainment scheme? “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“More like obscene,” I murmur.

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “I went to medical school. I got my grades. Top of my class, actually.” He offers me a blistering grin.

“Bullshit.”

Gabriel smiles. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You’ve acquired a filthy mouth in my absence, haven’t you? Probably all the sex.”

“Gabriel!” I hiss.

He laughs. “Oh, whatever. It’s an urge, Cassie. We all have them.” He leans back in his chair, still smiling smugly.

“What’s going on? Why are you impersonating a doctor?”

“I’m not impersonating anything. I’m here on business. I told you already; I went to school, I got the grades,” he shrugs.

“But… why?” I shake my head. “It doesn’t make any sense, Gabriel. What’s in it for you?”

Gabriel sighs. “I suppose I’ve come across a little self-centred.”

“There’s an understatement,” I snort.

“Look, Cas. It’s a shitty situation, the one you’re about to be in.”

My blood runs cold. I glare at him. “What situation?”

He sighs. “You know the rules, baby brother. I’m not supposed to tell you things ahead of time. Fucks with your head.”

“As if this isn’t fucking with my head enough.”

“Sorry,” he sighs. “Look. I’ve cleared my schedule for the rest of the morning.”

“You were expecting me?”

“Of course. What’s the point of being an interdimensional being if I can’t predict when to buy extra cake?” he reaches into one of his desk drawers and pulls out a pastry shop box. I open it up and find two icing-drenched cinnamon buns inside. Gabriel takes one out and pushes the box further in my direction. I don’t eat it. “More for me,” Gabriel says, through a mouthful of cake.

“Whatever’s coming is bad, isn’t it?”

Gabriel’s chewing slows. He puts his cake down and swallows audibly, like it’s thick in his throat. He looks at me with sympathy in his eyes and it makes me want to puke or scream or both. “Dean doesn’t know you’re here.”

“No.”

Gabriel nods. “We’ve met, you know.”

He’s changing the subject, trying to divert my attention from the real, pressing issue. “I went forward. I…” I gulp, pressing my eyes shut and trying to banish the image from my mind. Dean, at home in our bed, too sick to get up. Shadows around his eyes. A hoodie tucked around his face as he slept. There was a pager on his bedside table. He looked up at me and smiled, asked me what was wrong. I couldn’t say anything back to him. How could I?

“It’ll be okay,” Gabriel says quietly, gently. I meet his gaze. “It’s a funny business, the way you’re all tangled up into each other. In the least profane way possible.”

I flash Gabriel a grin. “Oh, brother. It’s most certainly profane.”

Gabriel grimaces and picks up his cake again. “Thanks for the images I didn’t need.”

I shake my head.

“So,” Gabriel says, leaning in. “What have I missed?”

We settle down talking. I tell him about the wedding, and he apologises for not being there. “I did call in, though. Just for a few minutes.” He smiles fondly. “You were pissed.”

I bark a laugh. “Very.”

We carry on, about the way times moves here, about Dean growing up. He’d been so young and fresh faced when we met. He had all these big ideas. He has a show opening soon at the Institute, Gabriel tells me it’ll be very successful, and then gets angry at himself for letting something slip. After half an hour, his eyes start wandering to the clock. At first I think I’m keeping him or something but the distracted look on his face is more like grim anticipation than annoyance. I can feel my pulse picking up as I try not to read too much into that. After five minutes of trying to talk to him when he’s so obviously not listening, I give up. “What happens at twelve?” I demand.

He closes his eyes. “Four minutes past, actually,” he corrects me, quietly. “That’s when I get paged.”

“Paged for what?” I demand, pulse ringing in my ears.

“I suppose we can make our way down there now, if you like.” Gabe says, sadly.

“Down where?”

“To the ER.”

“You’re not going to make it there, but it’s alright. You’re there when he wakes up, I promise,” Gabriel assures me. He grips my shoulder tight. “I love you, baby brother. I’m sorry about all this, I really am.”

There’s a sharp pain in the back of my head and I cry out in pain, keeling forwards out of my chair and onto my knees. My hands land on soft grass. It’s warm, but it’s raining. It’s summer. I’m in Kansas. There’s a pile of clothes nearby, neatly arranged for me. I pull them on, swearing under my breath.

**❣**

**DEAN**

I wake up slow. First its just a couple of seconds, and all I see are strip lights. I decide that’s a dumb thing to stay awake for and go back to sleep. The next time, there’s light and sounds as well. I’m a there a little longer; enough to register an unholy fuck ton of pain in my chest. I squirm, trying to get out from under whatever it is that’s causing it, but I can’t. Instead of panicking, I just sink back into myself again. 

Next time, it’s much brighter. It’s the morning. Cas is holding my hand, slumped forwards over his arm. “Cas?” I croak. My throat is sore and part of my face feels all tingly. He lifts his head, hair sticking up every which way. “Cute hair,” I mutter. There are tears in his eyes. “What?” I ask. The tears spill over, more and more. I’m not at home. Something is wrong. I strain to sit but Cas moves to put a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re alright,” he whispers. He doesn’t sit back down for a moment. When he does he grabs my hand again, holding it tight. There’s a tag around my wrist.

“I’m in hospital,” I realise, the beeping of a heart monitor figuring properly into my hearing for the first time. I reach up, paw at my face. There’s a thin tube in my nose, another one anchored into the crook of my arm. “What… happened?”

“You collapsed in the institute, baby,” Cas tells me. His voice is shaky. “It’s your heart.”

I frown. “What?”

“You’re alright now, though. You’re alright,” Cas’ eyes are too shiny. I close mine again. “Dean,” he whispers.

“I’m still here,” I reply. “My throat…”

“I’ll get a nurse.”

“No…” I groan.

“Dean,” Cas says firmly. He lets go of my hand. My fingers are cold without him holding them.

_Saturday, March 17 th 1996 (Dean is 24, Cas is from 1996)_

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

I’m sitting on the bathroom floor with the door locked and the shower running at the highest pressure setting. The sound of water against tiles is deafening and drowns out the sounds of my hyperventilation even to me. There’s no way Dean will hear it from our bedroom down the hall. I waited until he drifted off to sleep again so I could justify using the other bathroom by telling him I didn’t want to wake him. I don’t. I also need time to almost scream in privacy. Almost scream. That’s the limit. I can’t actually let the sounds leave my body. I have to keep them deep inside of me, bite them back, swallow them down. I throw up again in the toilet. The sound of puke hitting water is only just audible over the shower. I wipe my mouth with the heel of my hand, flush, and actually decide to open the shower door.

Steam billows out, accosting me and turning the air wet and thick. I step inside and confine myself behind the glass with it, tilting my face up into the stream so water pummels hard against my eyelids.

He’s been sleeping a lot because of the pain meds, but that’s it. He moves around the house, from sofa to bed to window seat, books in his lap, reading and snoozing. He starts conversations that he falls asleep halfway through. He doesn’t talk about what happened. He doesn’t acknowledge the reason he’s doing these things. He just acts like he’s fine and it’s killing me. He’s not fine. I keep waiting for it to hit him, but it doesn’t. Sometimes he feels dizzy; he drops his mug of tea; he falls and grips the doorframe; it’s his heart skipping a beat, literally. It doesn’t faze him. He cleans up his own mess, yelling if I try and stop him.

I take a long time in the shower, luxuriating in the stream, spending time with the water pummelling against my back in the hopes that it will work out some of the tension from it. Eventually, though, I have to get out. My fingers and toes are all pruney as I dry myself off. I’m reaching for my shaving foam when I hear a scream down the hallway.

Towelless I dart out, wet feet slippery on the hardwood floor. Dean is sitting on the edge of the bed, hand over his chest, his eyes wide. He’s grimacing. I feel the blood rush out of my face. “Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask, standing in front of him, one hand on each of his shoulders.

“I thought I could make it without my meds,” he tells me, through gritted teeth.

“You dumb jerk,” I mutter. Dean looks hurt. I close my eyes to try and muster some patience, dropping my hands from him. I throw the bottle from our bedside table next to him on the mattress. He stares menacingly off into the distance.

“Fuck off,” he growls, unexpectedly, and throws the bottle back at me. It hits me on the thigh, hard, and clatters to the ground. “I don’t want them.”

“Dean,” I squeak.

“What?” he snaps, turning his piercing glare onto me.

I shake my head. “Don’t punish yourself.”

“I don’t need them!” he yells, then his hands fly back to his chest again. His eyes slide shit. “Fucking hell, Cas.”

I pick up the bottle, shake two of the pills onto my palm, then put it back in the bed stand. I sit down next to him, holding my offering out in front of my face. “I can take them instead, if you want,” I suggest.

Dean laughs dryly. “You junkie.”

I crack a smile and offer the pills to him. His eyes tighten and he looks at the floor, clenching his jaw.

“This is real,” he says quietly.

I hand him his pills. “This is real,” I agree.

He takes them, then drops his head down onto my shoulder. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared.” I try to sound strong and comforting but my voice shakes. “I’m scared too,” I admit.

Dean loops his arm around me, and I push us both down onto our backs on the bed. “Don’t leave me,” he whispers, burying his face into my neck.

“Never.” I promise him, and I close my eyes. I swear to whatever powers exist that I’m telling the truth.

 

_March-April, 1996 (Dean is 25)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

It comes and goes. The pain, I mean. People are always asking. The answer is always that it comes and goes. What’s worse is the dizziness, the loss of sense of place. For the first time in my life I am beginning to guess what it might be like for Cas in those last few moments before he comes unstuck; displaced, lost, fallen into another time. We talk to Gabriel. I say we. What I mean is Cas. Cas talks to Gabriel. My attention in these meetings is like the pain. It comes and goes. It’s easier not to think about it apart from in the moments where it very fleetingly becomes unavoidable. I have been doing the same thing about Castiel for years. It’s fine, we’re fine, and then he’d gone all of a sudden and I have to deal with it, and I’m so fucking alone and desperate and it hurts so much it feels like it’s going to eat me up from the inside, and then its fine again. It comes and goes, the pain, if anyone was thinking of asking.

Cas cannot cope. Like everything in our shared lives Cas lives it twice as hard as I could every muster. I lose myself in sketches, and he sits in the corner of my studio, crowding me in. I have to say it’s doing interesting things to my work, if not my psyche. I can’t stand the way he hovers now, like at any moment I might spontaneously combust. I look after myself. Why is this happening? I cannot allow myself to ask that question because it’s one that I cannot bear to consider. There is nothing beyond this transient world, with its ends and its beginnings and its moments of abject despair. I hate and I love and need and I cannot bear. All at once. It’s killing me.

Heart failure. I won’t lie. In private moments I wonder if it’s Cas that’s done this to me. Over years and years it’s slowly worn me down and now I’m beginning to break. No. Not break. _Fail_.

 

 


	11. A Very Small Shoe

_Tuesday, June 4 th 1996 (Dean is 25, Cas is from 1996)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

The phone rings at two am. I reach over, assuming that it will be Cas on the other end of the line, needing me to come and fetch him from wherever. Maybe this one will actually come to bed with me instead of sleeping right on the edge of the mattress like he’s scared to touch me. “Hmm?” I say.

“It’s a girl,” Sam says in a shaky voice.

“What?” My mind is all sleep addled, and it’s not supposed to be Sam on the phone.

“She’s a girl, and she weight eight pounds two ounces, and she’s got a ton of blonde hair,” he laughs, and I can tell he’s trembling with the shock of it. I sit up.

“Sammy, that’s great! You’re a dad!” I tell him. He laughs again. I turn to Cas, phone cord snaking over my stomach. I shake his shoulder. “Cas, wake up. We’re uncles.”

“Huh?” he asks, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Jess has had the baby!”

Cas’ eyes go wide, all blue and sparkling perfect. I can’t help but smile at him.

“I’ve got to go, Dean. You can come up and see us, if you want. I know it’s late.”

“I’ll be there. Give me a half hour,” I tell him, and I hang up. Cas is already getting out of bed. He throws a t-shirt at me as he rummages through his drawers, somehow understanding better than I do the urgency of this moment. When I stand up to pull my jeans on, Cas whirls around and kisses me like he hasn’t for months, hands snaking all over my body, tugging at the short tufts of hair near the base of my skull. “Cas,” I moan, clutching him back.

“Come on. We said we’d be half an hour,” he reminds me with a twinkling grin. He releases me. We head out to the car through the warm night air, my t-shirt is sticking to me. When I turn on the engine the cassette I left in yesterday blares into life, _Carry on my Wayward Son_ filling up the whole impala as we take to the road.

Parking at the hospital is the best I’ve ever seen it, and I’ve been coming here a lot recently. We leap out of the car, and I almost forget to lock it. When we get up to the room, Charlie’s beaten us to it. Jess has her usually immaculate blonde hair tied back from her face in a messy pony tail. She’s asleep. Charlie is reading a book.

“Where is she?” I ask quietly. Charlie nods towards the window. Sam has his back to us, swaying gently from side to side. He turns. The baby looks ridiculous against his massive chest.

“She’s so tiny,” I find myself saying, without really meaning to. Sam grins the biggest, goofiest grin I’ve ever seen him wear in his adult life.

“She’s gorgeous,” Cas says. He’s standing behind me, one hand on the small of my back.

“You want to hold her?” Sam asks me, proffering the tiny bundle in his arms. I reach out and accept it. She’s a small, comfortable weight against my chest. She’s heated the tiny blankets right through and I can feel her little warmth on my skin right through them. She’s sleeping, long eyelashes against her cheeks. Cas reaches over and brushes a finger over her tiny, pinkie fingernail sized nose.

“She’s so soft,” he whispers.

I hold her tight. I’m gripped by a sudden fear that I’m about to fall, but then Cas moves, as if he heard it, and steadies me with a hand on each of my hips. He peers down at the baby over my shoulder, like an apprehensive kitten. “Do you want to sit down?” he asks me, and for once I’m grateful instead of irritated. Charlie gets up from the only seat in the room and I steal it from her. She doesn’t say anything. She looks beat. I think she was the birthing partner or some crap like that. Sam rubs her back and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m going to get some candy,” she announces, and slouches out of the room. Sam comes round to sit carefully at the end of Jess’ bed. She stirs but doesn’t wake.

“You were always good with kids,” Sam says suddenly. I peer up at him from his daughter’s face.

“You didn’t seem to be doing so bad yourself,” I note.

Sam laughs. “You missed the horrors by about two minutes. Jess fed her and then I decided to take her for a minute so she could have some rest, you know?” Sam looks gaunt. “Bad idea.”

Cas chuckles, stroking a finger down the baby’s cheek again. “Have you decided on a name?”

Sam looks at me for a moment, chewing his lip, and I know what he’s going to say before he actually says it. I look down at the baby’s gorgeous face again. “Mary,” I whisper to her.

“Yeah?” Sam asks, his voice thick like he’s about to cry. I don’t look up at him again, I just nod. “I didn’t want to… in case. In case you wanted to save it for your own.” At that I can’t help but raise my head. There are tears in my eyes too. “I didn’t know her that well and everything so. Yeah.” Sam shrugs. I look back down at the baby.

“She’s a Mary,” I conclude. I look up at Cas. I can’t read his expression.

When we make it home again, it’s almost four. I’m too tired to make it up the stairs and Cas knows without saying it. He kisses me to the couch and trails off to the kitchen to make tea. The living room is refreshingly cool after the heat of outside. Soon it will be even hotter, sun beating down, baking us. Cas comes back, hands me a mug and squeezes himself between me and the arm of the couch. “Cas?” I ask him, after I’ve taken a sip.

“Mm?”

“Let’s have a baby.”

Cas turns, eyebrow raised. “Right now?”

I nod. “Why not?”

Cas averts his gaze.

“Fuck, Cas,” I growl. I slam my mug onto the floor. “I’m sick. This is it. I’m sick, and I’m going to be sick for a long time, and it’s just going to get worse and worse and then what, hmm?” I snap. Cas has his eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t keep doing this anymore. I feel like…” I take a deep breath so I can finish. “I feel like you’re waiting for me to die.”

“ _What_?” Cas snaps.

I blink, swallowing to steel my resolve. “You heard me.”

Cas shakes his head. “I’m just-”

“I know what ‘you’re just’, alright? But you’re suffocating me.” It’s a relief to feel the words leave my body. Cas covers his face with his hands. “I want to live.”

“Baby…” Cas groans.

“Don’t start,” I hiss.

“No!” he barks, shoving me away so that I tumble out of my comfortable position and slump against the back of the couch. “I’ve seen where this goes!” he says, his eyes wide and livid. He gets to his feet and storms to the kitchen, slamming the door after himself. I heave myself upright and follow him slowly.

“What do you mean, you’ve seen where this goes?”

“Your heart,” Cas says, meeting my gaze with desperate eyes. “I’ve seen you. I’ve seen _it_. I can’t,” he splutters, shaking his head. “I don’t want this for you.”

“Well, tough shit,” I grumble, folding my arms across my chest.

“I want to fix it,” he admits, his voice strained.

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” he yells back at me. “Why can’t I fix this? What’s the point in anything, now? None of it matters. All of those years you spent waiting for me – _nothing_! I can’t do anything for you!”

I hold my breath. “Cas. You’re being a dick.”

He covers his face with hands. “I don’t care.”

I sigh. “Yeah, you do. Don’t yell all that bullshit at me and then try to pretend you don’t care.”

“What if it’s my fault?” Cas asks, despairingly.

“What does it matter if it is?”

“I should be burned alive,” Cas mutters, rubbing his temples.

“Oh for god’s sake, get a grip.”

“Dean, I’m serious.”

“If you and me never happened, I’d be dead. I’d have died in a car crash when I was seven. End of story. Capiche?”

Cas scowls. He drops his hands to his sides.

“So I don’t want to hear about how I’d be better off without you in my life, because if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even _have_ a life.”

Cas looks up with venom in his eyes. “That’s no excuse. I saved your life once and so I’m excused for ruining the rest of it?”

“Cas!” I yell. “Enough!”

“No it’s not!” he yells right back at me. “What’s the point in getting stuck here, in loving you, if you’re just going to die?”

I gasp. I turn away, looking at the ceiling. “Everybody dies.”

“Dean… I didn’t mean.”

I hold up a hand and silence him. “I don’t give a fuck, Cas,” I spit. “Sleep on the fucking couch. It’s not like you can stand to be near me any way.”

 

_Thursday, June 13 th 1996 (Dean is 25)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

Gabriel puts our tray of coffee down on the table in front of me. He slides my slice of pie across and starts to pick the wrapper off his muffin. He just did another echocardiogram. It’s getting worse, but only marginally. He’s spent the morning avoiding asking why Cas isn’t there, doing all the talking.

“Thanks,” I sigh.

“Why? You paid for it,” Gabe answers with a grin.

“I mean for agreeing to stay with me.” Whether he acts it or not, Gabe is busy most of the time.

Gabe shrugs. “You’re my brother in law, right?”

“Well, not strictly in _law_ …”

Gabe waves this away with his hand. “It’s all relative. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, today? I assumed you’d be on side with dear Cassie. He can barely stand the sight of me.”

It’s true. We’ve been back in touch with Gabriel for months now but Cas will only see him when I need to go to the hospital. “He’s been a little... single minded.”

“Hmm.” Gabe pops a too-large chunk of muffin into his mouth.

“It’s been… difficult for him to come to terms with all of this stuff.”

“He’s bitter because I never told him,” Gabe infers with a nod.

I gulp half of my coffee in one. “He’s bitter because he thinks he should be able to stop it.”

Gabe’s expression softens and he looks across the room. Something about his smile makes my guts writhe. I’m fifteen again and Cas is telling me about my future in the vaguest terms that he can manage, always leaving tantalising little nuggets of truth amidst his infuriating miss-directions.

“I know what you’re going to ask me,” Gabe announces suddenly.

I blink at him. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

Gabe sighs. “You’re going to ask what the point of it all is. Why this fucked up little universe of ours would bother calling in Cas to pull you out of that car if all it was going to do was make him suffer for it later.”

“I just…” I find myself saying in spite of myself. “I just want to understand _why_.”

“Dean. I can’t imagine what this whole thing has been like for you.” Gabe looks down at the table. “This world, this life. I’m just a tourist here. All I want is to help you and Cas in any way I can. That’s why I took this job here. It’s why I force myself into this godforsaken plane of existence only to trawl along the tide of your time like it’s holding me, too.” Gabe takes a deep breath. “Do you know why I bother?”

I shake my head. “You’re a masochist?”

“That’s beside the point,” Gabe rolls his eyes. “I do it because it matters. It’s this one tiny moment, and that’s all it’s ever going to be. But it matters.”

“Why does it matter?”

Gabe shrugs. “Who knows? But it does. And Cas, he doesn’t know why it matters either.”

“All my life I’ve been in love with him. All I seem to do is make him worse off,” I admit, miserably.

“You don’t,” Gabe sighs. “What you do is make _him_ matter.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I huff.

“Maybe not. But it is the truth.”

“It’s a load of horseshit.”

“Maybe you’re right. But then, it all happened, didn’t it? You met Cas when you were kid, but he didn’t meet you until you were twenty five. How the hell are you supposed to make sense of something that _opens_ with an impossibility?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should stop trying to make it fit into your premediated understanding of cause and effect, because with you two, it can’t possibly work like that. Maybe you can’t ever know, or understand, or get it right. But the fact still remains. This is your life, and it’s completely horseshit and contrived and totally incomprehensible. At some point, you’re just going to have to accept that, stop looking for answers, and live.”

_Sunday, June 16 th 1996 (Dean is 25, Cas is from 1996)_

**❣**

**CAS**

I wake up and stretch in the bed, my muscles cramped from sleeping on the couch all week. I open my eyes. There’s lazy sunlight pouring through the bedroom windows, a slight breeze drifting through the cracked open frame. It jingles Dean’s homemade wind chime softly. It casts twisted shadows of birds across the sheets. Funny, I could have sworn I fell asleep on the couch again. Maybe I wandered up here in the night, missing him.

I wonder where he’s gone. Maybe he’s angry at me for invading his space. Maybe he’s gone to sleep on the couch instead.

“Dean?” I call to him, but he doesn’t answer. The sheets are flung back on his side of the bed.

In the hallway, I smell coffee. I walk through the house as if in a dream. “Dean?” I’m calling to him, but he never replies. I can still hear the wind chimes in the silence, the pad of my bare feet on the wood floor marking out a rhythm to count it by. I have this awful feeling that he’ll have disappeared, like our places have been traded, like I’m the one who’s spent his entire life waiting for him to show up.

There’s a pool of coffee on the floor. In the light the dark surface sparkles, still and unmoving on the ground. I step through it; the liquid is cold on the sole of my foot. The trail is spilled from a mug, cracked on the tiled kitchen floor. Dean’s fingers are splayed like he’s reaching for it, but he’s not. He’s completely still. His eyes are closed, his skin is ashen. He’s lying face down on the ground.

“Dean?”

There’s a tickle at the back of my nose and I scream as I stumble back from him.

When I hit the floor I land on grass and I’m staring up at the night sky of Dean’s old backyard. “Fuck!” I yell, jumping to my feet, but it doesn’t mean anything. He’s gone. I left him behind. It’s my fault, I did it, and now he’s going to die.

I can’t think straight or breathe properly, all I can do is think it’s my fault, it’s my fault. I squeeze my eyes shut and I can feel that I’m going again and I pray to whatever powers may be that I’ll end up exactly where I just came from and I’ll be back in time to save him.

I slam into our mattress from about three feet above it. It’s dark outside and it’s raining. I sit bolt upright, my muscles tensed to run downstairs, but my hand is on Dean’s leg. He’s sitting up, blinking at me bleary eyed.

“Cas?” he asks, blearily. My heart is pounding in my chest.

“Dean! You were on the floor, I left you, I tried to stop but I…”

“Cas, what are you talking about?”

He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and sits up next to me. “When have you been?”

“What? I… I… just. I was here, you were downstairs…” I peer around the room, shaking my head. When I’d woken up, the sheets had been different. Patterned green and white. Now they’re blue.

“No, _you_ were downstairs. Sleeping on the couch,” Dean reminds me.

“When is this?”

“Uh, just about Sunday the fourteenth. I just saw you three hours ago, Cas. What’s going on?” Dean asks, yawning.

“I woke up, and when I went downstairs, you were on the floor. It looked like you’d collapsed or something. And then I left, fuck,” I gasp, flopping back down onto the bed next to him and covering my face. “If this is present, that means it hasn’t happened yet.” I realise. “Dean. What if you’re not okay? I didn’t… I couldn’t stop it from happening… I just left.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “Cas. There’s a lot of shit going on right now.”

I can feel tears in my eyes but I fight to bite them back. I fail miserably and have to bury my face against Dean’s thigh instead, whimpering pathetically.

“Be with me, here,” Dean asks, his voice tiny and desperate. I peer up at him and he smiles. He runs a hand through my hair and I lean into the contact.

“I’m with you,” I promise him.

Dean lays back against his pillows. Mine are still downstairs but I’m too scared to leave him. I fit my body around his like a glove, and hold him. It’s enough just to be touching. His skin against mine is relief. It sends shuddering waves of reassurance through me, and as I fall asleep against his chest, listening to the uneven throb of his heart, I can’t help but think that being with him is enough. Even if I can’t fix him. Even if I’m the reason he needs to be fixed. It’s me and him, against the world. And that’s okay.


	12. Catching

_Sunday, October 12 th 1997 (Dean is 26, Cas is from 1997)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

 

Cas holds Mary above his head and whirls her through the air. She squeals, delighted. Cas is grinning up at her, the lights in his eyes gleaming brilliant, and then he disappears through the doorway back into the living room.

“She’s growing so fast,” Sam sighs, shaking his head. He’s not wrong; Mary looks more and more like a proper kid every day. She’s getting to be hard work, too, now she’s properly up and on her feet. She never really crawled; it was as if one day she realised that if she held on to the edge of the furniture, she could use the strange appendages attached to her torso to get her around. Usually towards some kind of unhealthy food or a breakable object.

“You were the same,” I tell him with a grin. Sam scoffs. He pours us another glass of wine each. “Cas will be mad at you for that.”

“And since when do you care?” Sam sighs, sliding the glass towards me. I shrug and accept it. Cas is right, though. Two glasses of wine is already pushing it and I know I’m going to have another one when the food is ready. I hate having to think about it. I want things to be easy and fun. “Woah there, you might want to slow down.”

I blink at my glass; it’s already half empty. “Huh. Wasn’t paying attention.”

“You’ve gone and become a wino behind my back,” Sam laments, shaking his head. He peers through the oven door. Cas growls in the other door and Mary shrieks with delight. I chuckle, and Sam gives me an odd look.

“What?”

“You should just do it, you know.”

I frown and take a very carefully measured sip of my drink. “Do what?”

“Have a kid.”

I turn sharply away, staring at the photos on the fridge. Cas with Mary held suspended above his head in the park, when she was only a few weeks old. Me with her on Christmas day, cradling her in my lap. “I like borrowing yours.”

Sam sighs. “I think it’d be good for you. And for Cas.”

“Sam,” I mumble. “It’s not a good time.”

“You’re not getting any better, are you?” Sam snaps. I turn back to him slowly, but he’s staring at the ground. “You’re letting your illness own you, Dean. You’ve got to live through it.”

“I am living through it,” I insist, draining my glass and clinking it down onto the marble counter, empty. “It’s just… it’s very stressful, right now. We’re still trying to adjust.”

It’s only in the last six months that Cas has felt comfortable leaving me in the house on my own without fighting me about it. We’re only just starting to have sex again, really, and it’s still nothing like it used to be. Cas is too careful, too concerned about wearing me out. I can’t tell him too many times that I want him to wear me out. I want to feel exhausted, if it means he’ll stop handling me with kid gloves. We’ll get there, I know we will. We don’t fight about it, not anymore, and that has to be a good thing, right? He’s not unbearable, not by any stretch. He just cares too much.

“It’s been two years, how much time do you need?” Sam sighs.

“I don’t know,” I admit, shrugging.

“How long have you been talking about this now?”

I shake my head. “Sam. I can’t do this right now.”

“Have you thought about leaving him?”

I spin around, incredulous. “What the fuck, Sam?”

“He’s not giving you what you want!” Sam sighs, exasperated.

“It’s not like that.”

“So tell me what it is like,” Sam whines, desperate. “Talk to me, Dean. Please. It’s bad enough you hid all this from me through our childhoods, but hiding it now is ridiculous.”

I chew the inside of my lip. “It’s fine.”

“It isn’t. When I came round last week you said that Cas had been gone for days! How often does that happen?”

I look away, face burning. “It’s only for a few hours, most of the time.”

“How often does he disappear on you for days, Dean?” Sam asks, desperate.

“I don’t know. Twice a month, maybe?”

“Jesus. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What’s there to say?”

“I don’t know, maybe ‘my husband keeps popping off into the ether and leaving me alone in our house with absolutely no guarantee that he’s going to come back’?”

“Sam?” Cas asks. He’s standing in the doorway. Sam glares at him, furious.

“Get out of here, Cas, I’m talking to my brother.”

Cas turns to me. His eyes are wide. I shake my head minutely and he nods his in return. He drops his gaze to the ground, and slinks away. “Sam, you fuckwit,” I growl.

“What?” he demands, folding his arms over his chest.

“It’s not his fault! He doesn’t want the travelling to happen any more than I do! He hates leaving me here, and it _terrifies_ him. The guilt would kill him if anything happened to me when he was away,” I yell at him.

“I care about _you_ , Dean!”

“And I care about _him_.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “More than yourself?”

“Infinitely.”

“Are you happy, Dean? Because you don’t seem happy.”

I sigh and turn my back on him. “Things have been hard, that’s all.”

Sam puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I know. I just want you to know that you can still be happy, whatever is going on. You still have a future. Don’t forget it.”

Sam drops his hand and walks past me out of the kitchen. I hear him say something to Mary in his important-serious-dad voice, and she says something I don’t catch that makes all the adults in the room laugh. I hang my head and turn to the window. It’s dark outside, but there’s a full moon that casts everything in a hue of soft silver.

I feel Cas’ hand on the small of my back, and turn to press a kiss to his neck. He sighs and dips his head to catch my lips with his own. I turn back to the window again.

“I’m sorry about Sam.”

“He’s just worried about you,” Cas says gently. He wraps his arms around my chest and rests his head on my shoulder.

“I know. I can’t stand it.”

Cas sighs again and squeezes me. “I know.”

“All my life, I’ve been looking out for him, and now he’s trying to govern my life? I practically _raised_ him. Doesn’t he know I can handle myself?”

“He knows, baby. But he thinks you spent much more time worrying about other people than you do about yourself.” Cas drops his embrace and takes my hand in his instead. “He’s right.”

“So, what? You think I should be hideously selfish?”

Cas chuckles. “Yeah, once in a while.”

I turn and grin deviously. “Oh yeah?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Come upstairs,” I whisper loudly.

Cas rolls his eyes. “We have guests!”

I laugh, throwing back my head. “They’ve got a baby. They’ll entertained for hours.”

Cas’ eyes flick to the oven, but I just shake my head. “It won’t be done for another forty minutes.” I grab his face and kiss him hard. He moans quietly, clutching the back of my shirt.

“I’ve not laid the table,” he mumbles into my lips.

“You’ve not got laid, either,” I protest, and I shove him in the direction of the hallway. He goes without a fight. We break apart to climb the stairs as lightly as we can manage, but our hands are back to furious groping as soon as we’re on the landing. Cas shoves me onto the bed and I bite my lip. “More of that, please,” I insist.

Cas rolls his eyes but he looks starved as he fights with the button on my trousers. I kick them off, onto the floor. Cas leaves his own on, stroking himself through his open fly. I writhe prettily beneath him, looking up through my eyelashes as coyly as I can manage.

“Fuck,” Cas growls. He rushes with prep, and when he slides into me, it burns. I moan, but the pain is beautiful. Cas is panting, holding himself still and clutching the sheets in his fists.

“Cas,” I gasp. “Fuck me.”

He practically screams, his hips reacting seemingly of their own accord. He claws at my chest through my unbuttoned shirt. the headboard slams against the wall repeatedly, the sound making me shiver excitedly under him. “Awh, Cas!” I cry.

He moans my name as he comes, flopping down on my chest. I shove him over onto his back and roll on top of him, straddling his chest with one knee planted on either side of his head. “What are you doing?” he asks me, blue eyes wide.

“Being selfish,” I explain, and press the head of my cock past his lips.

We return downstairs half an hour later. The pasta-bake is burned at the edges. Cas’ hair is sculpted into wild peaks by my fingers. At the dinner table, I wind up sat next to Sam.

“That’s not what I meant,” he hisses under his breath, glowering at Cas’ mussed hair and my flushed cheeks.  

I turn to him, grinning. “Whatever do you mean?”

 

_Sunday, June 16 th 1996 (Dean is 25, Cas is from 1996)_

**❣**

**CAS**

Dean’s asleep on the floor in his studio, curled up on a pile of huge sheets of paper like an oversized puppy. His t-shirt is pulled loose over his shoulder, and his jeans are baggy over his ass and hang half off of him, showing off his grey and white checked boxers.

The sight of him strikes me hard. I feel, hideously, as though I have forgotten something very important about this moment I’m standing in, like I’m about to be asked some crucial questions or made to be examined. With sudden and inexorable force, I tear his t-shirt to the side. He wakes, peering up at me with sleepy concern. I’m panting. My wings are looming behind us both, massive and shimmering.

“Cas?”

“I love you,” I tell him desperately. “I love you more than anything.”

Dean blinks, reaching up to stroke my cheek. “What?”

“I love you!” I tell him again, shouting now, grinning madly. He smiles back, reaching up and running his hands down my chest. He pulls aside the tatters of my shirt, clawing at me with his blunt nails. I make short work of his belt and his pants. I leave his paint-stained t-shirt; there is no time. I cradle him to me, his legs around my waist, hands holding and pulling tight against the soft feathers at the base of my wings. I fuck him unhinged, sudden, desperate, needy. He claws and bites and swears with lust, his head back against the papers, cheeks flushed pink under his freckles, gorgeous over the blue he’s lying on, perfect under his golden hair as it is illuminated in the sun, pouring through the long windows at the end of the studio.

He pushes me back and I land with a muffled thud onto a pile of feathers. He jerks his hips, riding me hard but slow. It’s not enough, I want to come inside of him but he’s not letting me. He’s making me hang on, making me wait. He meets my eyes, fierce green bright and challenging as he reads my face, all of my emotions mapped across it for him to see. He bites his lip. I grab his hips and move him. He obliges. He comes first, in messy streaks between us. I barely leave a second to spare.

He flops forwards, disregarding of stickiness. He rests his head against my sternum. I hold him there.

“I love you too,” he says, between pants.

“Good,” I huff, and clutch him tighter.


	13. Intermezzo

_Thursday, August 13 th 1998 (Dean is 27, Cas is from 1998)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

 

Charlie’s mother is a crumpled piece of paper in her bed.

At least she’s home now, we tell Charlie. At least she has escaped the hospital to find her way back her to her refuge. Charlie doesn’t not hear our reassurances. I will not leave her here alone. I know what it is like to lose a parent. Before my dad burned our old house down, he’d been drinking himself to death for years. It has been faster and harder for Charlie. Her mom hasn’t been sick for that long.

I remember her from my childhood as this bright, busy figure. She was never that interested in us kids. She worked three jobs and raised Charlie practically on her own, because her husband worked on oil rigs out in the sea. I didn’t know any of this until we were older, of course. The Bradbury’s were always very closed books.

Cas has gone back to the hotel with grey blue circles around his azure eyes. I had to practically force him out of the door. He didn’t want to leave me on my own here.

Charlie wrings her hands. She makes coffee and doesn’t drink it. All night her mother has laughed, cried, shouted “Mama!” and writhed on her sheets. She’s dying. It’s messy. I think that it always is.

It’s dawn. I sit in the white chair in the living room where I used to curl up to watch movies when I came to stay. It had once belonged to Charlie’s grandmother. I suppose it will become Charlie’s own when her mother is finally gone. There are birds singing in the bushes outside, the chorus that welcomes everyday just starting up. Sleep’s pulling at me just a little, tugging at the corners of my eyes.

I can hear the clock ticking constant in the hall. My back is to the window. I watch the sunrise reflected in the glass cabinets that hold Charlie’s mom’s tableware. Plates, bowls, serving platters. All of them I recognise. I wonder if the plate with the chip in the side from where I cut pizza overzealously is still at the bottom of one of the piles.

The glass transforms, warped orange shapes hiding the cabinet’s contents and filling the room with a rose gold glow. I close my eyes to shield them from it. The birds are raising a cacophony, a hundred songs almost clashing over one another outside, but far off sounding. The room is almost quiet. The light begins to soften from bloody orange to amber and finally to that yellow pink shade that’s so familiar. I want to turn and stare out of the big window at the front of Charlie’s childhood home, but I’m suddenly scared that if I do, the illusion will shatter and the screaming will start up again.

I hear footsteps. The door swings open slowly.

Charlie is pale, her red hair pushed back off her face with a grey band. In her hand she holds a small square towel that she has been using to dab at her mother’s vomit.

“She’s gone,” Charlie says.

“Oh,” I say.

Charlie smiles, and tears drip off her chin onto the laminated wood flooring. They glisten in the sunlight. The birds are still singing.

_Saturday, September 12 th 1998 (Dean is 27, Cas is from 1998)_

**❣**

**CAS**

The garden is filled with copper leaves. The wind tears at them, scooping them up and carrying them here and there, but never managing to lift them well enough over the fence that it makes any difference. Dean has sent me out to the studio. He wants me to bring some of his paints into the house. I protested, of course. He has the studio so that our house does not _become_ it. I had to let him bring them inside though. He gets too cold out there when the wind is blowing a chill like this, and I hate to discourage him if he’s actually taking an interest again.

It’s strange. I don’t think Dean was all that close with Charlie’s mother, but he hasn’t so much as lifted a paintbrush since she died, as far as I know. He’s hardly seen Charlie, either. We’ve been around to her stylish apartment downtown several times to try and chase her back to our house for dinner, but she keeps turning us down. We’re being gentle. It’s not been that long yet. It makes sense that she’d be upset; she’s lost her mother.

It’s just that Dean seems so bereft of her. He wanders around, staring out of windows, watching the steam rise from his coffee. When he asked about the paint, he’d been sat at the kitchen table, staring down his medications. I thought he was on the cusp of another crisis, but as soon as I walked into the room, he popped all five pills into his mouth at once and swallowed them with a mouthful of water. I’m careful not to push him for answers that he’s not ready to give, having learned the hard way that Dean isn’t one to talk about feelings unless it’s somebody else’s.

The studio is a mess.

It’s normally untidy, but this is unprecedented. Dean’s huge sheets of paper are torn and stuffed into corners, the wire frames of the pieces he was working on right before he went out to Michigan with Charlie are warped and squashed back into nothingness. It looks like storm passed through. There’s even a splatter of blood on the concrete floor.

The paints he’s asked for are neatly in the middle of his gigantic sketching table, a handful of brushes beside them. It’s like he has engineered this scene for me. I peer around, looking for messages written in the dust. What, exactly, is he hoping this will explain?

I sigh and lift everything up. Underneath the wooden toolbox the paints are organised into, there’s a torn out page of a sketch book. With a jolt, I recognise it from years earlier; a tiny red bird in a messy black cage. What does this mean, Dean? I freed you by bringing you here, didn’t I?

 

  _Saturday, November 29 th 1998 (Dean is 27, Cas is from 1998)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

Cas helps me push back the rolling door on the front of the storage unit. I haven’t been here for years. I know Sam stopped by to collect some stuff with Charlie’s mom, right after we first moved to the city.

It’s a lot less full than I remember it being. Bobby Singer, Dad’s friend from work – from back when he still went to work – owns the lot and said that we could use this one for free. Said he owed my dad something, and it would make him feel like he was settling the debt. Bobby had an accident a few weeks ago, and it’s left him in a wheelchair. His old woman’s managed to convince him to sell up. Of course, that means I’ve got to start paying for the storage space I’ve been using.

We can afford it. Cas dismissed Bobby’s letter when he showed it to me. He gave me one of those worried sideways glances. He just wanted to make the problem into a non-problem, which I guess is what I wanted to do at first.

The cardboard boxes look softened. Everything has a layer of dust. The charred belongings of my childhood home surround me. For a moment, I’m frozen. I can’t will myself to move further in.

“Dean?” Cas asks.

I shake my head. “I’m alright.”

I turn on the light. It fizzes for a moment like the bulb is going to blow, but then settles and comes on, lighting up the murky gloom. I move as far in as I can get, and Cas hangs back, watching.

“I’m starting over here,” I announce.

“What do you need me to do?” he asks solemnly.

I take a breath. “I don’t know. Look through those boxes by the door. I think it’s all kitchen stuff.”

Cas nods. He watches me for a few moments, as I sink onto the concrete ground, but then he turns away and starts to search things through, too. I find boxes of records, most of them too warped now to be salvaged. The ones that can be saved I stack next to me. Pink Floyd, the Pixies, the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

On my hands and knees I crawl down along the wall. I’m a kid again, skulking in our back garden, unwilling to lift my head above the level of the kitchen window in case my father spotted me back there. I peer over at Cas, who is examining a champagne flute. He was the world to me, even then.

The next box I find is the contents of the bureau out of my dad’s bedroom. It was the room the fire started in, so we couldn’t get much out of it. I find copies of bill payments, stubs from casinos, the documentation for the Impala and all of her subsequent repairs. The latter I fold into the pocket of my jacket. There’s an ashtray, a bunch of blank postcards, more scraps and bills and shopping lists.

_Bread_

_Jack_

_Present for Dean?_

_What?_

_xxxxxxx? xxx_

At the bottom, there’s a copy of _The Single Parent_ and leaflet for AA. I gulp. Beneath them is a slim black journal, the pages yellowed and tattered. I lift it with shaking hands.

_Property of Mary Winchester_

I steel myself for a moment, trying to blink the tears out of my eyes. I turn the first page. There’s a picture of an absurdly chubby baby sat in a bubble bath. There’s a foam shape stuck to his forehead. I smile and trace the edges. I assume it’s Sam, but when I look at the date, I realise that it must be me. It’s held into the book by a paper clip.

On the next page there’s another photograph. This one is taped down. It’s Christmas; there’s a tree. My mother is sitting on the couch with Sam in her lap. I’m cross legged at her side. My mother is smiling and saying something to whoever is holding the camera, probably my dad. Her cheeks are flushed with laughter.

Besides that, the journal is empty. I turn the pages. Nothing. They are all blank. I want to throw it, but my hands won’t let go.

“Dean?” Cas calls across the room. “Are you alright?”

**❣**

**CAS**

I go and sit beside him, wind my arm around his waist. He hands me the journal. “Look,” he says, pointing at the second picture. “She’s happy.”

I look at Dean, swipe away tears from his cheeks with the pad of my thumb. “Yeah. She is.”

Dean sobs quietly. He leans into my shoulder, covering his face with his hands.

I stare at the photograph; Mary’s laughter is frozen, preserved forever. Dean, sitting next to her, is staring at the camera with wide eyed curiosity. He looks almost exactly like he did the first day we met. Maybe it’s the Christmas before that happened. It’s funny. All the moments I return to with Dean are like photographs. All frozen, all reaching on and on forever.

I realise that’s what this photo means to Dean. Dean, who thought that all photo evidence of his mother had been burned to a crisp. Dean, doomed to feel guilty forever for not quite being able to remember her face. To him, this photograph is like going back in time.

It’s not much, but it’s as good as he’s going to get.


	14. How Long is a Piece of String?

_Saturday, March 13 th, 1999. (Cas is from 1999, Dean is 28)_

**❣**

**CAS**

Sam and Jess have just had their second child, Hunter Winchester. He was born at eight in the morning, and it’s almost dinner time now. We’ve been waiting all day before going round, wanting to let them get home and get settled. Now we are descending on them with lasagne and cakes, plus a large bag of gifts, which I’m sure they won’t need.

Sam opens the door and Mary bounds past him, demanding me to lift her up and cradle her on my hip. Sam smiles and ruffles her hair. “I think she’s feeling a little jealous,” he explains.

She stick out her tongue at him. Dean laughs but Sam sighs tiredly. We retreat into the house. It looks like a glacier with a ‘Toys R Us’ store on it has passed through their living room. Mary squirms so I set her down, and she starts playing with the doll’s house that Dean and I bought her for Christmas, smiling proudly as she plays with the toys, as though eager to prove her affections to Dean and I.

Jess is sitting in a high backed chair, staring at the TV, which she switches off when she spots me. I smile gratefully. Hunter is tiny, his head domed and covered with dark curls. Jess looks terrible; her hair’s a mess and she’s sweating even though the room is actually quite cool.

“You look great,” Dean insists.

“Fuck off,” Jess sighs.

Sam laughs. “It was a rough night.”

They’d planned on having a home birth, but they gave up at six am and Sam drove her up to the hospital. By that point, Jess had already been in labour for thirteen hours. It’s no wonder she looks exhausted. Sam lifts Hunter from her lap, swaddled in white blankets. “You want him?” he asks Dean.

Dean’s green eyes are wide and eager. He takes the baby from his brother and cradles him close to his chest. “Hey there, little Hunter,” he coos softly. There’s a funny taste in my mouth.

“He’s a whole pound heavier that Mary was,” Sam explained.

“It’s no wonder I was knackered for the entire pregnancy,” Jess huffs. “He’s a monster.”

“He’ll grow up into a giant, just like his daddy,” Dean tells the baby softly. He sways gently towards me. I feel slightly woozy. There’s something about seeing him with a baby in his arms that makes the realities of the past few years hit me like a freight train. Our life has been on hold for so long, waiting for this miraculous cure or turn of the tide that will mean that Dean is better again. Suddenly I can’t breathe. Sam and Jess have a whole little family, but Dean and I… we are just Dean and I. When I disappear, there’s nothing left for him. He’s alone. And I know what’s coming. I know that at some point I’m going to die. And then Dean won’t have anyone. I’ve stolen his life, any shot he’s had at being happy and content has been eaten up by my greedy self.

“You want to hold him?” Dean asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t feel so hot,” I grind out, and dart from the room as fast as I can manage. I practically run through the kitchen and out of the back door, to stand on Sam and Jess’ tiny balcony, filled with potted plants. I grip onto the railing in front of me. It’s raining slightly.

The back door slams.

Sam comes out and stands next to me. He has his hands in his pockets. We’re silent for a while, letting the breeze blow rain into our faces.

“You okay?”

“I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in there,” I admit.

Sam nods. “Yeah. It’s a bit heavy.”

I sigh. “Yeah.”

I can’t stop myself from thinking about Dean, cross-legged on the floor of a storage unit, holding a photograph of himself and his mother in his shaking hands. That image, a mother and children, is enough to make my eyes sting. I rub away my tears with the cuff of my jacket.

“Don’t mind me,” I say with a quiet laugh.

Sam leans forwards onto the railing, placing us at eye level. “How’s things with Dean?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s fine, and then I catch him staring off into the distance when he thinks I’m not looking.” I smile sadly, shake my head. “It’s still hard for him, having to think about everything he does. He’s a free spirit.”

Sam hums contemplatively. “You guys still talking about having a kid?”

I shrug. “I suppose. It’s just difficult to imagine it.”

“Why?”

“I disappear all the time. Dean is sick.” Sam is going to interrupt me so I put a hand on his arm to silence him. “He’s fine, most of the time, but what if a day I go is a day he’s too tired to get out of bed?”

“He can call me,” Sam says firmly.

I sigh. “You’ve got a whole life of your own.”

“So what? He’s my brother. I’d do anything for him.”

“Sam. It’s not how it works.”

“Then how does it work?” he asks sourly.

I grimace. “I don’t know.”

Sam groans and stands up straight, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t see what’s so complicated.”

“I don’t even know if we’d be able to get an adoption. I don’t legally exist,” I remind Sam.

“Charlie would be Dean’s beard, if he asked her,” Sam points out.

I laugh wryly. “Yeah. She would.”

“And if she bailed he could always ask Jo.”

I bark a laugh. “We’d never get rid of her.”

Sam smiles a wonky grin that reminds me of Dean, and all semblance of amusement drains out of me. I look out into the grey street.

“He’s going to get worse, Sam.”

Sam says nothing. He closes his eyes.

“They’re going to wait it out until he gets whole lot sicker.”

“You don’t know that,” Sam protests.

I meet his eye, gaze unwavering. “I do.”

Sam gulps and nods. “What then?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

Sam grabs my arm and whirls me around. “Cas. I need to know, is my brother going to make it out of this alive?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“I don’t care about all the messing with probabilities bullshit. I don’t care if it makes the universe implode. I need to know.”

“I don’t know either!” I yell back at him, furious. “You think I’d be like this if I knew? You think I wouldn’t be reassuring him every moment if I knew?”

Sam screws up his face. “Zap to the future or something, find out.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

We both of us stare out into the street, silent. A black car drives by. Down the road, someone is playing jazz. It drifts towards us, half heard and barely noticed. I wish the melody of it was clearer. I wish it all made just a little bit more sense.

 

_Friday, July 23 rd, 1999 – Autumn, 1987 (Cas is from 1999, Dean is 28 and 16)_

**❣**

**CAS**

We’re looking after Sam and Jess’ kids for them whilst they go out and have some well-deserved alone time. Dean has bought an inflatable paddling pool, and Mary is standing in it already, though it’s not even halfway full. Dean watches the hose pipe, lifting it occasionally and spraying her with water. The sunlight catches in the water droplets and they sparkle as Mary squeals. Dean laughs.

I’m sat under the apple tree, a book open in my lap. Hunter is asleep, cheeks flushed from the heat, stretched out in our shady blanket-lined retreat wearing only his diaper. As he sleeps, he clenches and unclenches his chubby fists, his eyebrows knitted in intense fury, like he’s dreaming of battling dragons hand to claw.

Dean drops the hose pipe, and rubs his chest, grimacing. Mary splashes, oblivious. Dean looks over at me, takes a few uncertain steps, and then falls flat onto his face. Mary laughs, the sound of it beautiful. I feel my heart swell and contract once, and leap to my feet, rushing over to him.

“Dean, Dean,” I say, shaking his shoulder.

He groans wordlessly, rolling onto his back. He clutches at his chest with both hands. “Oh, god.”

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No!” Dean barks. He releases one hand so he can grab the hem of my t-shirt. “It’ll pass in a moment.”

I stare at him, grimacing. “Has this happened before?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Christ, Dean!” I hiss.

“Uncle Dean!” Mary calls. She is lifting the hose pipe and spraying water at her own face. I decide it’s best to leave that unaddressed.

I get Dean to his feet and take him over to the tree, where I sit him down beside Hunter. Hunter doesn’t stir. I call Gabe, turn off the hose pipe, and find follow the trail of Mary’s clothes back outside, picking up items as I go. Mary is splashing in the pool. Dean has his eyes closed. His lips are slightly blue. He has one hand resting lightly on Hunter’s stomach. I watch them for a moment, match my breaths in time with theirs, already synchronised. And then –

I am face down on the ground. Fuck. _Fuck._ He's alone, with the kids. I've fucking left him there and there's no way I can get back. Oh god, oh  _god._  I reach up. The Winchester’s garden wall is warm under my hand, but there’s a cool breeze on the air. 

“Hello.”

I turn, and Dean’s lying on his back beside me. He’s sixteen, his hair a much lighter blonde than it is in our present. He’s smiling at me, resplendent. Shit. I can't be here now. Of all the places, I wash up here, with him looking like _that._  I trail a finger down his cheek. I feel like I might scream or puke or both. His freckles are still dark from the summer time, but his tan has begun to fade. There's no sign of pain in his expression. He's softly smiling at me, though his brow is creased with confusion. The leaves in the bushes behind us tremble.

“What?” he asks.

Oh, god. Please don't do this to me, Dean. I don't have the energy. I take a deep breath. “What year is it?”

“1987.”

I think hard about what Dean has told me. Where was our relationship at this point? Is that pretty creature lying next to me in love, or is he still free? If I tell him to leave, maybe he'll listen. Maybe our futures will unravel and I'll pop out of existence in his life and everything will be fine.

Dean cuts off this train of thought by leaning over and planting a gentle kiss on my cheek. “When are you from?”

I screw my eyes shut, my heart pounding. “1999.” Where you're alone and unwell, with Sam’s kids. 

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks, rolling onto his front, getting much closer to me.

I cover my face with my hands. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

A long moment of silence passes between us. “Charlie won’t shut up about you.”

I lower my hands a few inches. “What?”

“Charlie hasn't let up since Jo's party,” he prompts.

I blink at him. “What?”

“You know. When you told me you loved me?”

I laugh and he blushes, dipping his head. He clears his throat, flustered. 

“Sorry, I'm laughing at her, not you. So she’s obsessed with me?”

He shrugs. “I dunno.”

“What did you tell her?”

He props himself up on his elbows, studying my expression. “Nothing.”

I consider for a moment before I respond. "Tell her the truth.”

He rolls his eyes. “As if she’d believe that.”

“You did,” I remind him.

“Yeah, but I was like five years old, and you had wings.” He shrugs.

“You still believe it now, don’t you?” I needle, cocking my head to the side.

“That’s different. I’ve had years to get used to it.”

I smile. “Uh-huh.”

He scowls, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. “She’ll never believe me.”

“She will.”

“Charlie and I… are we friends? In 1999?”

I sigh and close my eyes again. “Yeah. You’re still very close.”

Dean is quiet for a moment, considering my words and my body language, reading me like an open book. “Did something bad happen to her?”

I grimace.

“Is she alright.”

“She’ll be fine,” I hedge. I open my eyes again. He’s still staring at me. “She’s fine, Dean.”

“So, does she know everything about you? In the future?”

“It’d be inconvenient if she didn’t,” I explain.

He nods, excepting this. He sits up, crossing his legs. I mirror him, suddenly remembering that I’m naked and he’s very young and I’m very exposed.

“Do we have kids?”

I balk. “Dean!”

He bats his eyelashes at me, devious. “I was only asking.”

I grin. “Well, don’t.” I poke him in the side, under his ribs. He squirms.

“Hey!” he protests.

“Whatever,” I sigh. He reaches out towards me, then stops himself. I close the distance and lean my cheek against his palm. His hand is warm, his touch reassuring. “I love you, Dean Winchester.”

He blinks at me, green eyes wide. “I… I think I love you too.”

 

_Saturday, July 24 th, 1999 (Dean is 28)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

The house is empty when I get home. I try to pretend like I was expecting different, like it could be anything else besides that. I call Cas’ name. He doesn’t reply because he isn’t there.

I sit on the couch for a few minutes and breathe. I can feel my jackhammering heart, it’s uneven, rhythm-less thuds in my chest. I suck air in through my nose and blow it out slowly through my mouth. Gradually, my pulse begins to even out. When it’s calm enough, I get slowly to my feet. I check the studio. That’s empty too. Cas is still missing.

I called Sam from the hospital, lied to him that Cas was there with me when he offered to give me a ride home. I caught a cab. I thought I wanted to be alone, but now that I am, I realise there’s probably nothing worse. I sit at my desk in the studio, run my hands over my closed paint pots, and wonder where Cas has gone.

He’s been travelling a lot. He says it’s the stress of everything. Really what he means is that it’s the stress of being with me. I am ruining him. I have become fiercely jealous of my younger self, the one that he’s always going back to, the one that’s falling in love with this dark and mysterious creature and who has no idea of the horrors our future together will hold.

He always seems to go back to me. I’m his lynch pin. I’m the homing beacon. The ball and chain. The cage. There’s a famous painting, the Goldfinch by Rembrandt, which shows a delicate bird, chained to a dull and featureless wall by its ankle. It could flap about in circles, but never be free. It could never cross the skies like it was meant to, never fly amongst others of its kind. Its life is shortened, bound to, restricted by the chain around its foot. It’s beautiful, but horrifically sad. 

There’s a knock on the studio door. I look up eagerly, expecting Cas. Instead I see Charlie. She’s cut her red hair into a jaw-length bob.

“Front door was unlocked,” she explains. She peers around. “Can I…?”

I nod and she steps inside. She peers at my canvases, at the gigantic wire bust half-coated in paper emerging from the floor in the corner.

“Where’s Cas?”

“Gone,” I croak. I splutter and sob, eyes wide with shock at myself. Charlie freezes. She stares at me for a few moments before crossing the floor and wrapping her arms around me. I cling back fiercely.

“Sam called me,” she says. “He said you’d been in hospital again.”

“Yeah.”

She squeezes me tighter. “I don’t want to be hearing that shit second hand, unless it’s from Cas, alright?” She tells me. Her voice is thick. I nod against her chest. She sighs. “Oh, Dean. You don’t have to be alone right now.”

“He’s gone,” I tell her brokenly.

She stiffens. “I know.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” I sob into her, squeezing my eyes shut. “I’m ridiculous, this is ridiculous.”

“You’re not ridiculous.”

“I love him, I love him.”

“I know you do. I know.”

 

_Friday, January 14 th, 2000 (Dean is 28, Cas is from 2000)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

 

“Dean?” Cas calls from the other room. I look up from my book.

“Mm?”

“How many shirts do you think I’ve ruined with these?” He walks in, a tattered garment in hand, his wings massive and looming behind him.

“Holy shit!” Charlie barks.

Cas’ face drops and he blushes, hunching and tucking his wings out of sight with a soft, feathery ruffle.  “Sorry,” he mumbles.

I grin over at Charlie. “Ha! Twenty bucks!”

She’s too horrified to respond.

“Twenty bucks for what?” Cas asks, frowning.

“I bet that she’d swear as soon as she saw them.” I hold my hand towards her, palm facing the ceiling. “Pay up.”

“When did you make that bet?”

I consider for a moment, frowning. “Eighty nine, I think?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “You remember bets you made in eighty nine?”

I shrug. “Comes in handy when you have a time travelling boyfriend.”

“Husband,” Cas corrects.

“Nope. At the time we were definitely boyfriends.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “If it was eighty nine, we weren’t anything. Wasn’t that during my two year absence?”

I sigh. “Yeah, well. That’s only a technicality.”

“I don’t think we were boyfriends until I first met you,” Cas explains with a little nod.

“But weren’t we already married when I first met you?”

“ _I_ was married. _You_ were six,” he clarifies.

“He has _wings_ ,” Charlie interjects.

“Nobody was disputing that,” I point out.

“I don’t really have wings-”

“Yeah, thanks Cas. Anyway. Charlie, where’s my-”

A sudden twisting pain in my chest makes me cry out and curl back in on myself. My vision fogs and fuzzes, sounds like radios stuck between stations ring in my ears. Cas is holding me, I’m on the ground. Charlie is crouching behind me.

“It’s alright, just breathe,” Cas tells me, his voice frighteningly calm and collected.

“Should I call an ambulance?” Charlie is asking.

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them wide again. “No…” my voice is surprisingly weak and breathy. The effort to talk makes my chest hurt again. I glance at Cas in panic. He squeezes my hand.

“Call Gabriel. The number’s on the notice board by the phone.”

Charlie nods and gets to her feet, darting out into the hallway.

“Deep breaths, baby,” Cas reminds me, squeezing my hand again. “I got you,” he promises.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

A couple of hours later, I’m back in a hospital bed, with a tube up my nose and a bunch of electrodes stuck to my chest. It’s not looking good. Gabe is talking to Cas outside the room. The news he’s giving him is grim. Cas’ blue eyes widen impossibly, and then he doubles over. Gabe puts a hand on his shoulder. Cas disappears. He’s gone. Again. _I got you,_ he said. I know that I believe him. I just want to know _when._


	15. Ripples

_Wednesday, May 10 th, 2000 (Cas is from 2003, Dean is 29)_

**❣**

**CAS**

I wake up with a jolt into an empty bed. I stretch out. “Dean?” I call. There’s no answer, so I settle back to sleep. Sometimes coming unstuck can be handy, because it means I have an extra slot to catch up on my sleep.

When I wake up again, call Dean once more, and he doesn’t answer, so I decide I’d better go and investigate. Before we bought our house, it was a holiday home for a rich couple from New York, so when I sit up, I half expect to find a picture of someone else on a bedside table that doesn’t belong to Dean and I. Instead, I find my regular bedroom. There’s a pot of pills next to Dean’s side of the bed, and only one dressing gown hanging from the back of the door. From this I deduce that I’ve come back pre-op, and Dean is at the hospital.

I get dressed and go downstairs to make myself a cup of coffee. The mess of stressed out, hapless me is spread out across the kitchen. Notes and speculation, tangential information about what I’ve seen of our future. It must be May 2000. Dean has been in the hospital for two weeks, following a heart attack. He spent a few days in critical care. For me it lasted weeks. I travelled back and forth, always coming back to find him unconscious, a ventilator down his throat so machines could breathe for him. I can still feel the pale ghosts of those desperate feelings now, curling their wispy fingers at the bottom of my stomach.

I pick up all the stuff and fold it neatly, before sliding it into a recipe book. Charlie will drive Dean home without me. I will spend more hopeless days worrying that they both knew how neurotic I am. I smile, relieved now, finally, that my true neuroses were not revealed after all.

I walk into town, the early summer sun warm but only pleasantly so against my skin. I stop at our usual place, grab both of us a coffee, even though Dean isn’t supposed to have caffeinated beverages in his condition. Then I make my way to the hospital. 

Dean is surprised to see me. “Weren’t you supposed to be going to sleep?” he asks, his voice thin and papery, like his skin. He looks thin, his black hoody swamping him.

I lift the coffees. “I have.”

Dean smiles. “I’m not supposed to,” he reminds me as I hand him his paper cup.

I shrug. “I’m sure it won’t do you any harm.”

He studies my face, eyes looking even greener than usual now they are framed by pinkish-purple circles. He sips his drink. I kiss his head. His skin is cool and clammy. I smooth his damp hair and he hums contentedly.

“When are you from?” he asks.

“2003.”

“Huh.” He cocks his head to the side. “How’s that?”

I shrug. “We got a pool installed.”

Dean frowns. “A… pool?”

I shrug. It’s a mystery to me, too, but Dean seemed enthusiastic about and to be honest his enthusiasm relieves me so I’m happy to let the bizarreness of it slide. “I know. It’s a little odd but it gets the job done. Mary adores you for it.”

Dean considers this for a moment. “In 2003… am I… am I still.” He looks hopelessly at the medical equipment that’s dwarfing him in his bed. I think back to this time, to Dean, and try to remember what it was like. All I can recall is a sudden turn in his attitudes, how out of the blue, he seemed to bleed confidence and optimism despite his ever worsening condition. At the time, I wrote it off as him accepting his fate. Now, taking a breath, I realise that I was more right than I realised.

“No. In 2003, you’re not sick anymore.”

His eyes widen, the bleeps marking out the valiant throbs of his old heart speed up. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“You have a heart transplant.”

He closes his eyes, trying to process this information. “You knew?”

“No.”

He opens his eyes again, appalled. “But. But…”

“I thought you were going to die,” I admit.

Dean frowns, shakes his head. “I can’t let you-”

“That’s how it is,” I tell him, shrugging. I sip my drink.

Dean’s eyes are swimming with tears. “So, I just have to keep my mouth shut about all of it?”

“Didn’t it sound like it’d be fun when you were a kid?”

He laughs tearfully. _You’re not sick anymore._ I am almost crying too. Triumphant.

 

_Thursday, June 4 th, 2000 (Dean is 29, Cas is from 2000)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in the echocardiogram suite, and Cas is trying to chew off his fingernails. It’s a routine scan. There has been a lot of frowning at the pictures of my twitching heart that they are showing on the screen. Cas has made his fingers bleed, chewing his nails so diligently.

“Cas,” I say gently. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not,” he insists.

“Are you having an affair?”

He balks. “What?”

“Your hand is red.”

He stops chewing and peers down at his bleeding fingers. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

This sets his teeth on edge.

“What?” I demand.

“I can’t stand this,” he hisses, getting to his feet. He knots one hand into his dark hair, blue eyes wild.

“You can’t stand what?”

“You’re acting so fucking serene. I don’t get it.”

I sigh. “You need to calm down.”

He looks over at me, furious. “How the hell do you suppose I’m going to do that?”

His blue eyes are wide and fierce. There’s real fear behind them. I can’t look at them for too long. It makes my insides squirm with guilt. He can’t know. I can’t tell him. This is the worst secret I have ever kept, and it just so happens to be about me staying alive. I wish then-Cas could have been a bit more specific about dates. I put my hand on my chest and make a silent promise to my battered heart that it can give up the ghost soon. It just needs to hold out a little while longer.

Cas slumps into his chair. He just needs to hold out a little while longer, too. We can make it, the both of us. I know it for sure.

 

_Friday, June 9 th, 2000/November 19th, 1986 (Cas is from 2000, Dean is 15)_

**❣**

**CAS**

Dean is in the hospital again. Gabe kept saying over and over, they’re just keeping him in for observation. They’re just keeping him in. What the hell does that mean, other than that our bed is empty, and I’m alone, on the kitchen floor, and drinking.

I’ve made a nest of photographs. There’s me and Dean when he was fifteen. There’s the two of us the night we met in both of our presents, there’s me at Christmas when he’s a teenager, wearing a bobble hat. There’s me on the grass in his meadow, asleep, shirtless. There is him, curled on my couch, my old cat, R2, curled at his feet. There’s us on New Year’s Eve. More than a hundred pictures, all across times. Snapshots of us.

Did I break him? Is it my fault he’s dying? Maybe the same way my existence flits back and forth, his body strains to cope with the pressures and complexities of this impossible love. Can we call it love, really, when neither of us chose the other?

I press my face against my knees. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I need to time out. I know that at some point, I stop travelling back from the future. My mind is slowed by the whiskey I’ve been drinking. I know that date’s not for a few years, but still. The whole thing is muddled up anyways. Maybe today is the last ever day that I will live.

I crawl across the floorboards and snatch Dean’s pills from his bedside table. I shake some of them onto my palm. I count them out, lining them along the bottom of a photograph. Seven. Not enough. I shake the rest of the bottle onto the floor. Twenty three. I count again. Yes. Twenty three. That’d definitely be enough. My hands are shaking. Should I take them one by one, or shove as many into my mouth at once as I can manage? One by one would take too long. The first few might start to take effect before I got to swallow the others. I wouldn’t be able to make it to the end. I gather the pills back into their pot and heave myself to my feet.

I stagger to the bathroom. I knock all the pills back. I try to swallow. I feel a few of them sticking in my throat. I lean over the sink, try to swill them down with water, but it just makes me gag. I throw all twenty three pills back up again, their coloured ends bleeding red and blue into the water I tried to drown them with. I think maybe I should try again, and I reach down to pick the pills out of the sink, find my stomach twisting once more. I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them again, I’m in the meadow outside of Dean’s home town.

Coming unstuck has sobered me up and generated an instant hangover headache, which needles me right in the middle of my forehead. I pinch the bridge of my nose. Its early winter. The grasses are brown and the trees at the edge of the meadow are naked and rattling in the wind.

There’s a pile of clothes right next to me; hiking boots, combat pants, a shirt and a thick jumper. It’s just as well, because there’s a frosty chill in the morning air, and my breath fogs in front of me. The clothes are warm and dry, suggesting they’ve not been left here for long. The clothes suggest that it’s the mid-eighties, so Dean will be in the middle of his teens. I sigh. I’m not sure I can deal with all of his youthful exuberance right now.

I hear someone panting, running behind me. I turn and it’s Dean. He’s a foot shorter than me, his blonde hair long-ish and raggedy, swept across his forehead. His cheeks are pink from the cold and his exertion. “Cas-” he says. I can’t speak to him. I let him stand, rasping. His breath streams in white clouds from his mouth.

I turn and walk towards the treeline.

“Cas, what? What did I do?” he asks, grabbing my arm and catching me. “Why aren’t you talking to me?”

Oh fuck. “I’m sorry,” I tell him thickly.

He shakes his head, narrowing his leafy eyes. “Why? What did I do?”

Someone, shoot me. I cover my face with my hands. “You didn’t do anything. It’s me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was stupid. I was being stupid.” I massage my temples.

“You’re not stupid Cas.”

I can’t say anything. I drop my hands limply to my sides, become a shop floor mannequin. Dean is looking up at me, tense and anxious.

“I just wanted it to be over,” I tell him, brokenly.

He shakes his head. “You wanted what to be over?”

I sigh and turn away from him again. “I don’t know. I just wanted us to stop fighting. I wanted you to be happy again.”

“Me?” he repeats, perplexed.

“Yes.”

He sniffs. His nose is running.

“Do you have a cold?”

“Yeah. Did we fight?”

I brace myself. “Dean.”

“What did we fight about?”

“Well, it all started when the wife of your ambassador slapped the mistress of my prime minister at a soiree being held at the embassy. This affected the tariff on cherry pie, which in turn-”

“Cas! Could you for once stop making fun of me and give me an answer to my question?”

“No.”

Without apparent premeditation, Dean punches me in the face. Hard. “Fuck!” I bark. My nose dribbles blood onto my upper lip. He’s staring, wide eyed and apologetic. “Hit me again.”

He recoils, shocked. “What?”

“Hit me. Please.”

He shakes his head. “No… Cas, you don’t understand. I wanted to hurt you.”

“I know. Everything is so terrible and I can’t seem to feel it. Hit me, please.”

“What! That’s crazy, Cas! I’m not hitting you.”

“Please, Dean?”

“What’s the matter with you!” he gasps, staggering back from me.

I hang my head. “I don’t know.”

Dean comes close, very close, and takes my hand. He clutches it between both of his palms. “What’s going on?” His face is inches from mine. Something in me snaps and I kiss him, roughly. He is resistant. I release him and he covers his mouth with his hands.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he squeaks.

What is wrong with me? Fifteen year old Dean is not the same as the one I left lying in a hospital bed, whose been dying for months, slowly slipping into nothing, surely about to spiral out of my grasp, gone forever. I put my hands on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was wrong of me.”

He looks up. He’s crying. He’s a mess. Miraculously, there’s a pack of Kleenex in the pocket of the cargo shorts. I dab at his face with one of them. He takes it from me and blows his nose.

“You never kissed me before.”

Oh, no. My face must be funny, because Dean laughs tearfully. I can’t believe I'm such a humongous idiot.

“Oh, Dean. I’m so sorry.”

I shake my head. He laughs again. I take the tissue off him and put it back into the pocket of the pants so I can fold both of his hands into mine. “Just forget that, okay? Just pretend like it never happened.”

“But it was the first time.”

He will say the same thing to me in two years’ time, four years ago as I remember it. “It’s okay. We can try again.”

I lean into him, press our cold lips together. His eyes flutter closed. We break apart. “There,” I say softly. He blinks. We maintain eye contact for a while, and then he starts to cry. I hold him to my chest and let him sob.

_Monday, June 10 th, 2000 (Dean is 29, Cas is from 2000)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

Cas has been quiet and pensive all morning. All through breakfast, he seemed to be searching through imaginary stacks for a book he read in the eighties or something. He frowns and avoids eye contact. He shoves his hands into his pocket.

He hands me another cup of tea. “Ugh,” I complain. “I wanted coffee.”

“You’re not supposed to have coffee,” he reminds me.

I scowl. “What difference is it going to make?”

He jerks his head up. “Dean.”

“What?” I snap.

He sighs and shakes his head. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

I frown. “Did you go somewhere else?”

“What?”

“Did you come unstuck?”

He blinks. “How did you know?”

I shrug. “Sixth sense.”

His shoulders sag. “I went to the meadow. 1986. November.”

I consider this, casting my mind back. It was cold. “Oh. Our first kiss.”

He half smiles. “You were supposed to forget.”

“I’m the original elephant child.”

He sighs. He sits down next to me on the couch, watching me with anxious regard as though I might spontaneously combust. “I’m sorry.”

“What were you upset about, that day?”

Cas looks at the floor. “It’s nothing.”

“If I guess right, will you tell me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to pretend like it never happened.”

There’s a long pause. He gets to his feet and takes me tea out of my hands. I hear the soft pad of his feet on the kitchen tiles, and then a crash. I close my eyes. I cannot will myself to get up for a long time. Eventually, I have to. The mug is shattered on the ground, a pool of tea still growing. His clothes are in a heap. I gather them up and put them on the counter. I reach down to get the mug, and I feel like something inside me gives. I yelp, and then everything goes black.


	16. Aftershock

_September, 2000 (Dean is 29)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I dream that I’m sitting in my bed in the house I grew up in. Everything is there. My desk, my photographs, the old arm chair Charlie and I dragged from the dump, where Cas used to sleep. The window is open, the curtains billow in. Cas is sat at the bottom of the garden. “It’s a dream,” he tells me. I believe him, because I can see his wings, but they are not inky and, but the same wintery shade as the snow that falls around him. I climb through the window. He’s looking up at the sky. His skin his pale like the snow, too. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he says. I sit next to him on the wall. It isn’t cold. He takes my hand.

I dream that I am in the park in Michigan, and Sam is on the swing, and I’m pushing him higher and higher, only the swing isn’t moving, it’s me, and the ground. Sam is screaming for me to push harder, but every time I do, he moves further away, until eventually I can’t touch him anymore. The park is in the air, amongst the stars. I grab one of them and hold it over my heart. I push it but it won’t go in. Cas takes my hands and pulls them aside. “Here,” he says gently. “Take mine.”

I dream that I’m waiting to catch a train. I have two bags filled up with shopping. When I peer into one of them, it’s filled with packets of Kleenex, and the other one is too. They are getting heavier and heavier, water gushing through holes in the bags. Everyone else on the platform is staring at me. “I’m sorry,” I tell them, and I know that I’m blushing. The bags burst and a tide gushes from within them. Fish twitch on the train tracks. Someone rolls their eyes.

I dream that I’m on a boat in the middle of a lake. The water is red. “It’s blood,” Cas tells me. I dip my finger into it and taste it. He’s right. “I’m bleeding,” he says. There is blood pouring out of him, but I can’t tell where from. He doesn’t seem to mind. The blood fills the boat and pours over the edges, to join the rest of the lake. I see my reflection in it. I’m completely clean.

_Tuesday, September 26 th, 2000 (Dean is 29, Cas is from 2000)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

Hospitals function at a different speed to the rest of the world. Everything is slow and far away. I spend a lot of time apologising and thanking people. I spend a lot of time trying to talk to Cas. I can’t sit up, really. There are tubes in my chest that anchor me to my bed. A quadruple bypass. Unstable. It feels like there is a weight on my chest.

Cas has brought me a tray and a canvas and a set of drawing pencils. He sits and fusses and tries to feed me, massage me, cheer me up, until I snap at him to go away. He skulks out of the room, and I feel guilty. I’m only occasionally conscious enough to speak, and now I’ve stolen that from him, as well.

I take a pencil to the paper and I start to draw a heart. It’s perfect, anatomically correct. I draw a delicate web of veins that spread across the canvas like branches and twigs. I think about my final art project for college, about my Castiel on his knees, made out of driftwood, bleeding light onto the ground.

Cas returns. He peers at the page. “Better?” he asks me.

“Better.”

_Monday, October 2 nd, 2000 (Cas is from 2000)_

**❣**

**CAS**

It’s been five hours. I’ve not moved. I’ve barely dared to let myself breathe. Dean is in surgery. They are giving him a new heart. My own pulses wildly in my chest, dizzying. I’ve been terrified that I’m going to come unstuck, and usually that means that I’m going to, but today, I’ve been wrong. I stay right where I am; exactly; precisely.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and jump. It’s Gabe. There’s blood on his scrubs. He has a surgical mask under his chin. I can’t read his expression. “It’s done,” he says.

“What?” I ask, blinking.

“Dean’s made it. They’re closing him up.”

I feel a grin split across my face. Gabe half smiles.

“He’s going to be okay?” I ask, dumb founded.

“It’s going to be a rough recovery. But yeah. He’s going to be okay.”

I leap to my feet, whooping. Gabe looks as though he’s going to be sick. “What is it?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

_Monday, October 9 th, 2000 (Dean is 29)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

I’m awake. It hurts like fuck. There are still tubes of blood sticking out from the bottom of my ribcage. Cas flits about, delighted and afraid. He keeps crying.

Charlie as just visited. She brought me a book. I have been trying to read it, but my eyes won’t focus on the page. I give up, reach with my shaking hands and put it back on the bedside table.

I close my eyes. I keep imagining this heart is different. I keep imagining that it’s changing me with every throb of blood through my body. My fingers tingle. My head spins. I’m alive today because someone else died. Their death saved me. I know that love doesn’t really come from the heart. I know it’s just a romanticisation, but I can’t help but wonder. I wonder who they were, where this heart came from. Who did they love? What did they think about? Where did they live?

“The body has gone missing from the morgue,” Gabe tells me, gravely. He won’t meet my gaze.

“That’s awful.”

“Nobody has come looking for him yet,” Gabe says. “He was a John Doe. Just happened to have a donor card. Practically had your name on it,” he tells me with a weak smile.

“How did he die?” I ask.

Gabe hesitates. “Poison.” I frown. Gabe shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I know it’s strange, but I want you to try not to think about it. You’re going to get better, now. That’s all that matters.”

There’s a lump in my throat. “But someone’s dead. Won’t there be people out there, wondering where he’s gone?”

“They’ll come forward eventually. Don’t worry, Dean. Just try to get some rest.”

I shake my head. “But…”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you,” Gabe shrugs. He leaves me on my own, to the bleeping of the EKG at my bedside and the strange sound of blood dripping through my drainage tubes and into a bag at the side of my mattress. I can’t shake the feeling of dread. Maybe it’s a hangover from before the surgery, an out-dated fear that my life is about to end. But it’s not about me. It’s someone else. I put my hand gently over the thick gauze hiding what will become a scar. The new heart twitches on. I feel like I should be in mourning.

_November, 2000 (Dean is 29)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

It’s hard, at first. I can’t lift things. I still can’t walk much more than three steps without help. But it gets better. The pain in my chest gets lesser. I don’t have to keep a dressing over my scar. It’s angry red when the stitches come out. It hurts when I catch it wrong. Sometimes my sternum hurts if I breathe too enthusiastically.

Cas helps. I hate it. I hate letting him do things for me. I hate him pushing me to do things for myself, too. He holds me in the shower, presses kisses along my spine. After six weeks he turns me around and presses a gentle kiss to my scar. He falls to his knees, worshipful.

Whenever I’m alone I keep crying. I don’t know why. Cas drives me to therapy. I barely talk to the doctor. She smiles wistfully. What can I tell her, really? I can’t tell her about Cas. About us. I can’t begin to explain the growing fear and dread of carrying this new organ in my chest. It’s working well. I’m healing tremendously. There’s no signs of rejection. I should be happy. Cas is happy. Sam is happy.

I feel like I am suffocating. I feel like I did when I knew my dad was going to burn our house to the ground, like when I knew all of this was going to happen, the day I held Cas and let him cry for hours because it’s not fair, none of it.

I call the hospital, but the only things they know about the man whose heart is beating inside me is his blood type and the condition of his heart. They don’t know where his documentation has gone, and there’s no sign of the body ever getting down to the morgue from the operating theatre. I want to let it go but I can’t. Not knowing is drowning me. Who was he? Who did he love? Where did he come from? Questions I may never know the answers to. I want to stop looking. I can’t.


	17. A Beginning

_Tuesday, December 28 th, 2000 (Cas is from 1989)_

**❣**

**CASTIEL**

It’s cold. The apartment is empty. It looks like nobody has lived here for years.

There’s a set of clothes in the drinks cabinet. I pull them on, drink the dregs of vodka from the bottle, cursing my past and future self for not rationing it more considerately. I get to my feet. I’m stiff from the cold.

Outside, it’s snowing. There are Christmas lights. I wonder what year it is. Maybe the nineties. I shiver in my thin coat, look around for a bar that’s still open. I duck into the first one I see. There’s a wallet in my jeans, and thankfully there’s cash stashed inside of it. There’s a girl at the counter with wild blonde hair. She turns, eyes flitting up and down over me. I smile at her. She’s caught.

We sit at the bar. Her ID says she’s twenty, but it’s fake. She tells me she’s eighteen. From the look of her I’d guess she’s even younger. Maybe seventeen. Maybe sixteen. It’s hard to tell. I tell her I’m twenty two, which is pushing against the lower limit of the age that I could be. She seems convinced. She’s small and birdlike. She’s wearing a red dress. She’s beautiful.

I kiss her in the room at the back of the bar, filled with armchairs and couches. I tell her my name is Jimmy. She says that hers is Christine. I hitch her legs around my hips, drive myself deep into her. She’s warm and tight and beautiful. I fuck her and then leave.

 

_Monday, February 12 th, 2001 (Cas is from 2001, Dean is 30)_

**❣**

**CAS**

 

Dean and I have just discovered a little bookshop that’s recently opened around the corner from my old flat. We’re on our way to Sam and Jess’ new place. I have a gift bag with a bottle of wine in it. Dean has a card tucked into his leather jacket.

He’s pouring over the art books, trailing his fingers over their spines. I’m in the fiction section, watching him more than browsing myself. He lifts up a Kandinsky print book. “Do we have this?”

“No.”

“We need Kandinsky on our coffee table,” he tells me firmly, and we head over to the counter to pay. The girl behind the counter is a tiny blonde thing, hair held back off her face with a bandana, large glasses balanced on her nose. She smiles at Dean, but when she spots me, her smile drops off.

Dean frowns and glances at me over his shoulder, a look at says _homophobia in this day and age?_ But the look on the girl’s face is worse. She takes Dean’s book, but doesn’t stop staring at me. “That’s fifteen dollars. _Jimmy._ ”

My stomach falls to somewhere in the region of my ankles.

“Cas?” Dean asks, frowning. “What’s going on?”

I hand the girl a twenty and put my arm around Dean’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”

“I’m pregnant,” she calls, loudly.

My heart is pounding, bang, bang, bang. Dean looks at me. “What the fuck?”

I turn and glare at her. “What?”

“I never went with anyone else.” Her eyes are swimming with tears. I wrack my brain. It’s been so long since I’ve slept with anyone other than Dean. I can’t remember her name. I can barely remember her face.

“Cas. What’s she saying?”

“I don’t know,” I say, my voice flat. I stare back at the girl, trying my best to plead with her silently. It doesn’t seem to be working.

“Please,” she says desperately. There’s a lilt in her voice. “I don’t have any money. I can’t have this baby.”

There’s a gold cross around her neck. Dean looks appalled. He stares from me to her, stricken. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her, my voice is empty. Dead. I take Dean’s hand, but he doesn’t clutch mine back. The girl begins to cry.

Dean shakes himself free of my hand and goes to her. He puts his arms around her shoulders. “Hey, hush now,” he coos to her. She buries her face in his shoulder, pale hands clasping at the hem of his shirt. “It’s going to be alright.”

I speak without meaning to. “Is it?”

 

_Monday, February 19 th, 2001 (Dean is 30, Cas is from 2001)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

 

Cas sits in the corner of the room, his face a blank slate.

When I look at him a fresh surge of fury blitzes through me. Rationally, I know I can’t blame him. He came unstuck from the past, ended up in our present, and did what he always used to do when he felt alone and needy. He didn’t know that I was out there, waiting for him. By 1989 he and I had been in love for years already, by my counting. Sure, I slept with people at college, but that was different; he explicitly told me to. I know he didn’t know I existed. I know he was just being himself, as he was in 1989. But it’s our life, now, that’s being effected.

“The baby’s healthy. Due at the start of September,” Gabe tells us. I say us. Cas really isn’t listening.

“So she’s keeping it?”

“She won’t terminate. In any case, she’s quite far along, now. It starts to get complicated.”

I nod, covering my face with my hands. “Shit.”

“She wants to give the baby up for adoption,” Gabe continues.

I lift my head, frowning. “But… but what if it’s like Cas? What if it comes unstuck?”

Gabe sighs and shrugs. “It’s not likely. Cas is human enough to conceive, so maybe the baby is completely normal.”

“Human enough to conceive,” I mutter. “How the hell is this even possible? He’s not even real!”

Gabe raises an eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” I snap. “He’s a mythological being. He’s a fucking angel. How has he impregnated this kid?”

Gabe’s expression sours. “Would you like me to draw a diagram?”

“Fuck you, Gabe,” I hiss. “Fuck. You.”

“Obviously, he can’t be listed as the father, because he doesn’t legally exist…” Gabe sighs. “I mean, we can draw up non-disclosures.”

Cas stands up so suddenly his chair falls over. We both stare at him, expecting him to either puke or disappear. He does nothing but waver for a few moments. “Dean could sign.”

“What?”

“He could go down as the father on the birth certificate,” Cas says slowly. He looks at me, hedgy.

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

He blinks. “Non-disputed custody transfer. You wouldn’t even have to go to court.”

“Cas.” I say. “What are you…?” And then I realise. I understand.

He blinks again, his blue eyes shining. Slowly his words begin to sink in. I feel heat in my finger tips and in my cheeks. I leap up to my feet, too. Gabe has his eyebrows raised at us.

“We don’t have to do this,” he tells me firmly.

I laugh. “Shut up, you fucking idiot.”

He shivers. “I’m so sorry.”

I shake my head. “A baby, Cas,” I say with amazement.

With shaking hands, I lift the blurry ultrasound picture from Gabe’s desk. It’s too early on for us to be able to see anything at all, but somewhere in that picture, there’s a baby. “Our baby,” I say out loud. Cas is crying. I’m crying. It’s all a mess. I have to turn away.

 

_Tuesday, April 19 th, 2001 (Cas is from 2001, Dean is 30)_

**❣**

**CAS**

 

I’ve got so used to coming to the hospital with Dean that I’d forgotten there were any other units than cardiology. Claire, our girl, is already in the waiting room in the prenatal lounge when we get there. She’s reading a magazine. Her t-shirt doesn’t reach over the swell at the bottom of her abdomen. When we see her, Dean clutches my hand. She looks up at us and smiles.

Relations with Claire have been frosty, but, selfishly, I think that’s a good thing. She’s still in high school. She lives with her aunt, who owns the book shop we discovered on that fateful February afternoon. If we’d not spotted it, if it hadn’t been raining, if she’d not been sent out of school early for punching someone in the face, then I’d probably never have seen her again. We’d never have known about the little creature she is growing, now especially for us.

She seems to like Dean a lot more than me. For obvious reasons, she doesn’t know that I’m not a heartless cheating bastard. I don’t mind. I feel like a cheat anyway. Dean’s stopped punishing me now, but I can’t stop punishing myself. Claire won’t stop punishing either.

“It keeps kicking me,” she complains. She has a hand on the side of her bump. She beckons Dean over, takes his hand and presses it against the dome. His eyes widen with childlike awe and he looks at me, grinning. I just roll my eyes. I sit down opposite them and pretend to be interested in massaging techniques.

Dean goes into the ultrasound room with Claire. He asks me to come. I politely refuse. They emerge twenty minutes later, and Dean is holding a little cardboard picture frame. He hands it to me. “She’s sucking her thumb,” he tells me, proudly. The picture looks like a world map, or a galaxy, or a baby. He’s right. She’s sucking her thumb. I catch myself, frowning.

“She?” I ask.

Dean’s eyes sparkle. “She.”

_Wednesday, November 11 th, 2011 (Cas is from 2001)_

**❣**

**CAS**

I’m in the Surrealist Galleries at the Chicago Art Institute, and it’s the future. Not that much is different. People’s haircuts are a bit worse, if you ask me. There’s a higher percentage of people in decent outfits.

It’s strange. I so rarely travel forwards in Dean’s timeline, and it excites me that I feel so strong, so present here. It’s a shame I’m so jittery that I can barely stand still to drink in the names of the artists whose works I’m peering at. Back in 2001, we are waiting for a call to say that Claire is in labour. I would hate to miss it. Our baby, real at last.

I notice something, a familiarly laid out sketch. When I turn I am confronted by a beautiful glass sculpture, made of broken bottles stuck together with some kind of blood-red mortar. There’s a light inside. The shape is vaguely human, but also not. Some of the broken pieces are arranged like birds. I smile, touch the plaque that’s on the wall next to it. _A Beginning, Dean Winchester._ I shiver.

A band of school children are walking towards me. I dip my head, making my way around Dean’s sculpture, and find myself confronted by a more familiar piece of his work. The wings are instantly recognisable. The figurine of me is gone, though, replaced by what seem to be mock crystalline structures. I want to touch it, run my hands all over the piece’s jagged edges.

The school children have stopped by Dean’s sculpture. I look over at them, ears perked, interested as to what they’d say about the work. There’s a typically well-groomed employee pointing at the sculpture. She asks the children questions. They seem bored and restless. They are around ten years old. Their teacher is standing at the back of the group, small and mousy haired, but attentive.

Behind them, there’s a girl with wild, dark hair. Though she’s the same age as the others she’s clearly not a part of the group; the others are wearing catholic school uniforms. The girl is wearing tiny red Doc Martens and a purple knitted dress. She raises her hand to answer every question, but the employee ignores her. She’s starting to get fed up. She wanders away, fiddling with the beaded bag she has over her shoulder. She rounds the corner towards me, and I can see her face. I gasp. It’s her. She’s my daughter.

Her eyes are blue and wide. When she spots me, she grins. “Daddy!” she says. She hurries over to me, flings her arms around my waist.

“Baby, baby,” I coo. I lift her up and whirl her through the air. When I set her back on her feet, she giggles.

“It’s so good to see you!” she says. I laugh and pinch her nose.

“It’s good to see you too. Actually, this is the first time we’ve met.”

She straightens and extends a hand towards me, blushing. “How do you do?” She’s the most self-possessed child I’ve ever met. She’s all me. I can’t find Claire in her at all.

“I’m very well, thank you.”

“When are you from?”

“2001, just before you were born,” I tell her, warmly.

“Lissie,” she tells me suddenly. “Short for Celeste.”

“Lissie is short for Celeste?” I ask, unable to stop grinning.

She nods, contently. “Like Celestial Being.”

I laugh. Oh, Dean. I don’t think I’ll tell him. It won’t make a difference either way. Lissie sniffles. Her eyes are red. “Are you here by yourself?”

“Uncle Gabe is in the coffee shop. He said I could come over here and look while he’s waiting for my sandwich. He said I might find something good.” She beams at me. “I did.”

“Where’s your dad?”

“He went out with Charlie last night. Gabe says it’s a good idea to give him some alone time.”

There’s a moment where I am going to ask where I am in this present, but then I don’t. I already know. “When did you last see me?”

She shrugs. “A year ago? You don’t come often. Papa says that you didn’t go forwards very much.”

I blink and nod. “He’s right.”

Lissie reaches up and puts a hand on my cheek. “It’s good to see you,” she says. She reminds me of Dean, in her manner. The way she talks and moves. I cradle her.

“How is he? Papa?”

“Okay I guess,” she shrugs. “Sad.”

My stomach twists. I realise I do not what to hear anymore.

“How old are you?”

“Ten,” she tells me proudly.

“Ten? Wow!” I laugh. “How come you’re not in school?”

She sighs. “I tried for a bit, but it’s not very convenient. Sometimes I come unstuck.”

“You travel?”

She nods. “Papa says I’m exactly like you. Uncle Gabe thinks I’m a prodigy. Sometimes I can control where I go.” She says this as though discussing piano lessons.

“You should come back to see me,” I tell her.

“I try sometimes. Mostly I go forwards.”

“That’s amazing.”

“We should call papa! You should go see him!” she tells me excitedly.

“You’re right.”

Gabe is waiting for us in the lobby. When he sees me his face splits into a grin. He pulls me into a rough embrace. “Baby brother,” he sighs. “Good to see you.”

“You too,” I reply. I’m still clutching Lissie’s hand.

“Uncle Gabe is teaching me guitar!” she explains.

Gabe laughs. “That I am.” He fishes a tiny cell phone out of his pocket and does something to it, before handing it to me.

The voice on the other end is bleary and confused. “Gabe? What’s going on? Is Lissie alright?”

“Dean, honey. It’s me.”

“C _as!”_ he yells into my ear. “I can’t believe it! Come home!”

“I’ll try…”

“When are you from? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I didn’t want you to wait.”

“Shall I come there, will it be faster?”

“Yes, probably.”

“Cas – wait for me.” He hangs up. We head out onto the street and sit on the stairs by the lions. It’s drizzling. Lissie tells me about guitar lessons and dancing, reading _the Lord of the Rings_ with Dean, playing in the snow, recounting her birthdays that I have missed; her tenth; her ninth; her eighth; her seventh; her sixth. I feel like I am marking out ‘x’s on a calendar, counting down towards my own death. I look at Gabe. He knows what I’m thinking. I squeeze my eyes shut.

The impala parks down the street. When I see it I stand up. I start down the stairs, tripping, catching myself. I run towards him. He’s running towards me, smiling wide, cheeks red, eyes streaming, but it’s too late, I can feel it in my ears, I’m going already, there’s no way I can stop it. He’s too far away. He’s not going to make it. He’s reaching for me, desperate and pleading.

I shout ‘I love you’ as coherently as I can manage, and then I’m gone. Damn. _Damn_.

 

_Friday, August 24 th, 2001 (Dean is 30, Cas is from 2001)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

Cas has been gone since dinner, yesterday. I’m trying not to think about it. I saw Claire yesterday, her body is swollen and huge. She is unhappy in the summer heat. It was eight five degrees earlier but now it’s beginning to cool off. There’s a slight breeze that gusts through the open doors of the studio and rustles my paper. I get up, grab one of the bricks off the table, and weigh the top of the sketch down. It’s a mess of charcoal and lilac chalk, worked furiously with the sides of my hands and my arms. I’ve been in here since breakfast. I’ve not taken a break since one. I think it’s starting to go dark, out there in the real world. I cannot face it.

I dare not go back into the house. What if Claire has the baby and Cas doesn’t come back? What if he’s dead? What if I die? These questions chase each other around my head, eating one another like the old woman who swallowed the fly, only the song goes on and on forever.

I sit back on my heels, look at the work that I’ve been trying to let consume me. The shape is twisted, arced strangely backwards over himself. The pose in unnatural and uncomfortable. I am imagining screams of agony as I pull the drawing from the paper.

I remember the way Cas used to talk about travelling, about life being one big picture that makes no sense, flitting back and forth to the bits of it that seem important and trying to work out what they mean. I think it’s informed the way that I make my art. I’m never really sure what I’m going to do when I start out. The pictures grow beneath me. I have to try and guess what bits are supposed to be there, moving back and forth until the coherent whole emerges.

Where’s Cas now, I wonder. Maybe he’s with me. I try to rationalise it like that. All the times he’s gone now, he’s back there, with me. Helping me, holding me, teaching me. Loving me with a kind of distant understanding that allowed me to flourish and grow on my own, and fall in love with him, too. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Outside, the sun is setting. I’m starting to get hungry. My stomach growls. I’m going to starve to death because Cas is not here to make me dinner. I stop sketching and think about maybe going into the house and trying to make some pasta or something. The thought of it exhausts me. I get to my feet and dust myself off, ambling sedately towards the house. I climb the stairs, peeling off my clothes and leaving them abandoned on the bedroom floor, just the way Cas hates it. They send up clouds of grey chalk dust.

I climb into the shower and wash myself incrementally. I start out sitting down, slowly scrubbing my feet. I work soap onto my legs next, smoothing down so all the fine hairs are lying the same way. Then I wash my crotch. I toy with the idea of jacking off in the shower, but decide against it. I get to my feet and work up a lather on my chest. I watch water bleed the soap suds away, revealing the scar underneath. It’s still a little pink. Eventually, it will be completely white. At least it looks less angry now.

I close my eyes and listen to my pulse. I imagine the strange heart twitching in my unfamiliar chest, straining against stitched up valves and arteries, forcing blood through my veins. I find it marked out in the side of my neck, measure the tempo against my fingertips. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

I wash my hair, then my face, and climb out of the shower. I towel myself off as quickly as I can manage and throw on some clothes. My hair is still dripping down my neck when I get back into the kitchen.

Cas is standing by the oven. When he sees me he looks relieved. “Thank god,” he sighs, and pulls me into his arms. We kiss. “Claire?”

“Not yet,” I reply. More tension eeks out of his shoulders. “Where were you?”

He pulls out of my grip, grinning. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“Oh, sounds exciting,” I reply. “Let’s sit down. I’m beat.”

“What did you do all day?”

“Just lay around,” I sigh.

He laughs. “Poor Dean. No wonder you’re tired,” he teases. He follows me into the lounge.

“So. Tell all.”

He grins. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Cas, you’re a dreadful tease, you know that?”

“I think I should say first that this is by far the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Weirder than you and me?”

He considers for a moment. “Actually, yes.”

“Weirder than watching my mother die over and over?”

His smile falters and he turns to me, giving me a long, warm sigh. “That’s become almost routine at this point. It’s like a recurring nightmare. All I do is watch. This was much weirder than that. It was like being in a David Lynch movie.”

“Heavens, since when does it make pop culture references?”

He winks. “I’m very pop culture savvy now.”

“Of course,” I agree. “Anyway. What was this totally weird unbelievable thing?”

He pauses, drawing it out. “I just met our daughter.”

“What?”

“It was 2011. November, I think. I met her.”

“What was she like?”

“Beautiful. Blue eyes, dark hair. I couldn’t see Claire in her anywhere. She’s just like me, only beautiful. Tall, long fingers. She was like a young cat.”

Perfect. Perfect. I laugh with delight. “I’m so jealous!”

“It was amazing. She’s so smart, Dean, just like you at that age. She was looking at one of your sculptures, actually.”

“Really?” I’m astounded. Completely at a loss as to how to react.

“Dean, I. There’s another thing.” Cas shifts uncomfortably.

“Does she… is she…?”

Cas looks at the ground. “She does.” We are both silent. He strokes my cheek. “I know.”

I want to cry.

“But, Dean. She seemed happy. I asked her about and she-” he pauses, laughing. “She said she _liked_ coming unstuck! She said it was _interesting_.”

We both laugh, a little ruefully at first, but then we look at one another and something gives. She’s real, and perfect, and more like Cas than I would have dared to hope, and it’s going to be okay, and she’s going to be happy, and of course, it is interesting. _Very_ interesting.


	18. Birthday

_Thursday, October 6 th, 2001 (Cas is from 2001, Dean is 30)_

**❣**

**CAS**

It’s three in the morning.

Dean has been pacing about the house since twelve.

“Maybe we should just go up to the hospital?” I suggest. The sentence is well rehearsed now. I’ve said every hour, on the hour, since this started, and occasionally in between.

Dean runs his hands over his face. “But she said we should wait until she calls,” he tells me, again. This, too, has been rehearsed. Claire is in labour. The entire evening has been delicately planned.

“And Charlie?” I ask.

“When Claire calls, I’ll call Charlie,” Dean mumbles. It’s protocol. I know this.

“It’s getting pretty late now, though.”

“Charlie said to call no matter what time,” Dean reminds me.

I nod and look at the clock on the mantel. Three oh four. Well, the good news is we’ve managed to whittle the drill time down by three minutes. I consider telling this to Dean, but he’s just started up his kitchen to bedroom pacing phase and he turns out of the room, arms behind his head, hands clasped behind his neck. I sigh and lay back down on the bed. Trying to sleep is pointless, too. Dean will be back any minute. I’m too keyed up at any rate. I close my eyes anyway, flirting with my exhaustion, tempting sleep to take me.

“Cas?” Dean asks from the hall. His voice has that breathy quality that makes me sit bolt upright immediately and poise to leap forward, in case he collapses. In case he’s sick again. I’m so un-used to him not being sick anymore. It’s all the pills he still has to take. It’s the way he still moves a little gingerly and gets breathless on the stairs. Gabe tells me he’ll keep improving but fear has tied itself tight to my insides.

“Are you alright?” I call back to him.

“What if something goes wrong?”

I swing out of bed and creep into the hall, as though afraid of waking someone else who isn’t there. Dean’s sat on the top step of the stairs, staring out of the small round window halfway up them, in the bend. “What would go wrong?”

“People die in childbirth and stuff, don’t they?” he asks, voice trembling.

I rub my hand over his shoulder blades. “Not very often, at least not when they’re as young and healthy as Claire is.”

Dean grabs my hand over his shoulder and leans into me. “And the baby?”

“She’s going to be okay,” I promise.

“You met her. So she’s real.”

“Yes, she’s real.”

“Cas, what if you’re wrong about all of this?” Dean whimpers.

I peer down into his eyes, so wide and impossibly green that I’m afraid I might start crying, too. “I’m not, honey. It’s going to be alright.”

He sighs and closes those sad, teary eyes and tucks into my side.

“We really could just go up to the hospital,” I suggest.

“But it’s not the plan.”

“Oh, fuck the plan,” I sigh. “It’s nearly half three, right? She’s been in labour for what, eight hours?”

“Eight and a half,” Dean corrects.

“There can’t be much more waiting to do,” I conclude brightly.

“I don’t know. Some women can be in labour for days,” Dean tells me bleakly. I feel my insides shrivel. Waiting, like this, for _days_? Sometimes I forget how much I hate the way time works in this stupid place and then it creeps up on me like that and makes me want to kill things. Or myself. Either way would be fine right about now.

“Is it worse waiting here or at the hospital?” he asks.

I consider this for a moment. “Hospital.” Those places have a way of making anyone feel completely powerless. I can’t think of anything worse than hospital waiting rooms. All they make me think of is Dean, chest cranked wide, hands around his heart. Helpless. I’d rather be in the house, knocking around, than getting holed up there again.

“I’m really tired,” Dean admits.

“We could try and get some sleep?”

“I guess,” he sighs. I get up and pull him to his feet. He kneads his chest with his knuckles. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he whispers, shaking his head. “Feels weird when I’m anxious, like it’s trying to get out of me,” he explains with an odd little laugh. I squeeze his hand. He makes a little sound like he’s in pain.

“Deep breaths,” I mutter.

“Distract me.”

I press a kiss to the back of his neck, and he half turns into me.

“Distract me harder,” he whispers with sudden fierceness. His hands are on my hips, pulling me close, nails biting the skin. We kiss with languid intensity, sighing and groaning into one another, his hands scrabbling at my back.

The phone rings and Dean jumps to his feet as though he’s been electrocuted.

He runs down the stairs. As I trail after him, I eaves drop on the half of the conversation that I can hear. “Yes?” He begins curt, formal. “Yes!” The pretence has fallen now, making way for unabashed excitement. “Oh! Oh my… well. I… Yes. I thought we’d be getting a call when – no, I understand. Of course. We’ll be right there.”

I get to the hall as he’s hanging up. “She’s had her,” Dean says, slightly stunned.

“Oh,” I say. It all feels somewhat anticlimactic.

“Claire… she’s going to be gone when we get there.”

I nod. Dean looks as though he’s going to cry.

“You think she’ll hate us, when she grows up?” Eyes wide, lips pressed into a thin line. He’s terrified.

I try not to linger on the ‘us’ part of that. “Of course she won’t. She’ll understand. She’s really smart.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure as sure,” I promise him.

“God, Cas.” Dean covers his face with his hands. “A little girl. Our little girl.” When he reveals his face again he’s smiling, tears streaming down his cheeks, and I can feel my eyes prickling with tears too. This beautiful man, so happy now, so alive and vibrant and _whole._ I stride towards him and kiss him hard on the mouth. He moans delightedly.

“Let’s go get her.”

“Wait. protocol,” he says steadily. He takes a deep breath. “I’ll call Charlie.” He picks the phone up again and dials her number. I know when she’s answered because of Dean’s splitting grin. “Morning, comrade. It’s happening,” he announces, a bright glint in his eyes.

In the car he turns on the radio and for some inexplicable reason Queen is playing, and Dean winds down the windows, pressing his foot hard on the accelerator, singing at the top of his lungs. “Can anybody find me! Somebody to love!”

I am in a fit of giggles. When we get to the hospital carpark, we get as close as we can to the doors of the maternity ward. I glance over my shoulder into the back seat, currently empty. Dean reaches out and puts a hand over mine. “Hey, lover,” he says quietly. “You holding out on me?”

I smile nervously. “Never.” And so we get out of the car. The hospital smells the same that it always has, even though we’re in a completely different part of it than where Dean and I spent so much of previous years. I wonder if I should have got used to this new part of the hospital by now.

Dean is on a mission, three strides ahead of me and widening the gap every moment. He pushes through doors, guided by some mystical sense, leading him to our daughter. Then, there we are. A glass window through to a room filled with babies, all bundled neatly in white blankets. A nurse emerges, asks us who we are, and then ushers Dean inside. I stand on the other side of the glass, watching. The nurse stops by one of the plastic cots in the corner and scoops the bundled infant into her arms. She places it in Dean’s instead, his arms already forming a cradle. He looks up at me, his green eyes ringed red.

The nurse holds open the door, and Dean carries her out. He’s clinging to her fiercely. “Celeste,” he tells me quietly.

“Celeste,” I agree. She is tiny, her hair still damp and stuck to her forehead. Tiny red fists clench beside her blotchy, screwed up face. She sleeps angry. She’s perfect.

“Little Lissie,” Dean sighs and plants a delicate kiss to her forehead.

I laugh, tears in my eyes. “Lissie indeed.”

“You think it’s stupid?”

“No. It’s perfect.”

He looks up at me, grinning. “You knew?”

“Only because she told me,” I admit, looking at Lissie’s sleeping face. “You’re so beautiful,” I whisper to her. Very, very carefully, our mouths meet above her.

 

_Friday, October 7 th, 2001 (Cas is from 2001, Dean is 30)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

 

I sit in the chair in the corner of the room, Lissie bundled in soft blue blankets, her arms swaddled close to her body. Her eyelashes are so long they brush her round, pink cheeks. Cas comes in and out, bringing coffee, soda, glasses of water for me, and warm bottles of milk for the baby, each of which he tests in the crook of his arm before he hands them to me to do the same. Sometimes he stops and sits at my feet and I unwind one hand and card my fingers through his hair, soft and light, back and forth, his warm breaths marked against my thigh.

Charlie comes over, holds her close, brings gifts. I barely say a word. I haven’t stopped smiling for hours. I’m not sure if I’m physically able to stop, now. My cheeks don’t even ache. This smile is the new set of my face. When I slept a precious few hours, I swear the smile didn’t even fade then.

Sam comes at dinner time, with Jess and the kids, all of them so big now, even Hunter, compared to our little angel. Little _angel._ The thought is powerful and I move to press my lips to Cas’ as he is ordering the take-out food for everyone. I don’t say anything, but I can tell from his slightly dazed expression that he’s heard me anyway. _Thank you for this miracle_ , I tell him. _Thank you for this life._

 

_Monday, June 10 th, 2002 (Dean is 31)_

**❣**

**DEAN**

 

Cas disappeared this morning as he was making Lissie’s breakfast. I came downstairs at the sound her squawking and found his dressing gown and pyjama pants empty on the floor, a bowl of baby cereal sat on the counter, the last dregs of milk glugging from the plastic neck of the container and onto the floor. Lissie, with her wide blue eyes and dark brown waves, watched me with uncertain eyes, until I lifted her from her seat. We went to the pancake house down the street, the first time she’s ever tasted anything like that. After that, we sat in the garden on a blanket, spread on the grass, the bowl from the sink in the kitchen filled with water and plastic toys for her to splash in.

“Would you like a pool, kid?” I ask her, and she beams up at me with her sparsely-toothed smile. she claps her chubby hands and fishes out her toy giraffe from the water bowl with a delighted squeal. “You have no idea what I’m saying, do you?” I ask her fondly, smoothing my hand over her warm head. We sit in the shade of the tree, sun beating down just a few feet away from us.

She plays for a while, rolling onto her back, holding the giraffe and a small, African deer that Cas insists is an impala (just like daddy’s car, he’d say). She laughs, touching her feet to the toys, toenails painted, tiny oblongs, each one a different colour. I still can’t believe Charlie and Cas thought that was an acceptable thing to do to an eight-month old baby. Lissie’s eyelids are drooping. She drops her arms, impala and giraffe and all, to her chest. Moment by moment, she falls asleep.

I lay down on the blanket beside her, studying her trouble-free face. She’s so perfect, and peaceful there. I want to call Cas, to show him how beautiful she is, how alive and vibrant in the shade, her very own sun, a source of love blossoming right before my eyes. But Cas is gone. Even if he were here, I’d be afraid of calling him in case it woke her, our little sleeping angel. Instead, I get to my feet and creep over to my studio. The doors are open – they’ve been open all night – to tempt in the summer breeze to dry the warped paper shapes around the crystalline glass forms that I’ve arranged particularly in the middle of the room. I touch the still-damp pulp as I pass, and grab my sketch book from the table, along with charcoal and a lilac stick of chalk.

I settle back on the blanket next, moving gingerly so that I don’t jostle the her as I sit. I prop the book on my knees, and set about discovering her again, from beneath the blank page I smooth with my hands. First a delicate clam-shaped ear, and then her soft m-shaped upper lip. The soft domes of her eyes, nestled safe behind her heavily headed lids. Her hands bundled around her plastic animals, sleeping sound.

When I’m done, I sign my name, write the date. There. A moment, frozen forever. Proof that we existed, my little girl, me, on this lawn on this day. And I love her, and will always love her, even long after I am gone. Even after she is gone. This drawing will remain. It says ‘I love you. Always.’


End file.
